“no, I’m not a child,” affirms Sarah in an interview with DW. The 38-year-old Teheranerin has been married for eight years, happy. She works for a food company. Financial Worries, you didn’t. “Having a child means a lot of responsibility. I don’t want to wear it, perhaps because I have not recovered from the constant competition in my own life. I belong to the Generation of the baby Boomer generation in Iran.”
Sarah was born after the 1979 Revolution in Iran. Back in the 1980s, the birth rate in Iran was still one of the highest in the world. The population of the country has grown explosively.
population growth of the 80s
in 1979, the country had 37 million inhabitants. Family planning was promoted. Population growth had declined in the ten years before, even slightly. This birth planning rejected the religious Revolutionaries as “UN-Islamic”. They dreamt of a powerful, densely populated, Shiite-embossed country in the Middle East. During the long bloody war against Iraq in the 1980s, all the authorities promoted greater abundance of children.
this time Sarah and her three siblings to the world. “We had a nice big house with a garden. But outside of our home, everything was in short supply. The kindergartens and schools had no capacity for our Generation. The schools had to organize the class time to all students to accommodate. And that was just the beginning. We all knew it later in order to every study, every work place would give a tough competition. I still have this feeling of uncertainty and fear that a better could get my job.”
family policy in a changing
The population of Iran has doubled in the last 41 years: From 37 million to 84 million inhabitants. At the same time, a rethinking took place in the policy. It was recognized that the education and health systems were overloaded and it lacked during the Iraq war, to make the necessary investments. In December 1988, the Supreme court said that family planning was perfectly compatible with Islam, and paving the way for a modern programme for the promotion of family planning.
With this program, a family size should be established from an average of three children. To achieve this, a driving force behind the government, the distribution of modern contraceptives and introduced nationwide consultation and information measures. Thus, a number remained Essentially stable, the company managed to reduce by 2010 the average number of births per woman, from 5.1 to 1.7,. At the same time, the number of births went according to “Tehran Times” sharply, from around 1.48 million in the period March 2016 to March 2017 to about 1.36 million, and 1.2 million in the subsequent periods of time, so per year, more than 100,000 births fewer.
The spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei criticized for a long time is the low birth rate in the Islamic Republic. Khamenei wants an increase of the population in the future 150 million. In 2012, he was a family political u-turn and let all of the funds for education and contraceptive stress. In the Mail 2014 Ayatollah Khamenei said the increase in the birth rate, even to a strategic objective of the Islamic Republic.
More births are desired
In consequence of a series of measures for the reconciliation of work and family were introduced, the women are to more allow free space for the maternity. Thus, the legislator extended the maternity protection period to nine months. During pregnancy, a woman can submit a certificate at any time sick leave. Also people with children, access to credit and jobs has been made easier.
These measures were of massive Propaganda in the state media and institutions such as the universities of accompanied. The young population but could not convince all of the. The average age in the country is almost 31 years. A large family with several children for many of these young people in question.
Because of the mass rural Exodus in the crowded cities, the ongoing economic sanctions by the United States and, not least, the ongoing drought of the past 30 years, many Iranians have a difficult life. In this Situation, many people can’t imagine is easy to bring a child into the world, as well as Sarah.
author: Shabnam Hein
*The post “fall in the birth rate alarmed Iran’s leadership” published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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