WUNRN
The
In his 14-point decree, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said increasing
Khamenei’s order, which must be applied by all three branches of government,
replaces the “fewer kids, better life” motto adopted in the late 1980s when
contraception was made widely available.
Since then the birth rate has fallen from 3.2 percent in 1986 to 1.2 percent ,
according to the CIA World Factbook. At current fertility rates,
But many Iranians are concerned about policy shifts to boost the population,
something proposed for years by conservatives, including the former president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who favoured nearly doubling the population to 120
million, encouraging women to stay home and devote their time to child-rearing.
Reformist Iranians fear the fertility campaign could undermine the position of
women in a country where 60 percent of university students are female but only
12.4 percent of the workforce is, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran.
Fertility is one of many issues that divides conservatives and reformists in
Farzaneh Roudi of the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based
thinktank, said if
“The government could tap the women labour force, many of whom do not work in
the formal economy,” she said.
Roudi added that the political push for a baby boom was unlikely to succeed.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that people will have more children because
Khamenei wants them to.” The Guardian