The impact of family planning and delaying childbearing on women empowerment in Iran

The literature documenting fertility transition in developing countries, including Iran, have largely focused on the determinants of fertility decline and less attention was given to the impact of the decline on women’s lives. Using longitudinal retrospective data from 2009 Tehran Fertility Survey, this study examined the impact of contraceptive use and delaying childbearing on women’ educational and employment trajectories, as indicators of women’s empowerment. Multinomial logistic analyses indicated that compared with contraceptive nonusers, women using modern contraceptives before first birth and delaying childbearing by three years, were more likely to experience 1-2 years of increase in education level and to stay employed after successive births, controlling for other factors. Further cohort analyses revealed that more recent marriage cohorts of women were more likely to experience educational improvement and to remain stably employed over time, compared to older cohorts who did not have access to freely available family planning services. Background The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced perhaps the most rapid and far-reaching fertility decline demographers have ever witnessed. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the total fertility rate which rose slightly to 7.0 children during 1980–84, dropped by more than 5 children to below-replacement-level fertility (1.9 children) in 2006 (Statistical Centre of Iran, 2000, 2008; Ministry of Health and Medical Education, 2000), along with a rise in contraceptive use from 37% in 1972 to 65% in 1992 and 74% in 2000 (Aghajanian and Mehryar, 1999; Ministry of Health and Medical Education, 2000). This is a remarkable fertility transition, as the government policy in Iran never resorted to the types of coercive measures that have been employed elsewhere. Although the rapid decline in fertility had started in the mid 1980s, the widespread use of contraceptive methods provided by the first post-revolutionary nation-wide family planning program, implemented in 1989, contributed to 63 percent of the reduction in the observed fertility (Erfani and McQuillan, 2008). The literature documenting fertility transition in developing countries, including Iran, have largely focused on the determinants of the decline, and have given less attention to the impact of the decline on women’s lives. Thus far, past studies have examined the impact of women’s educational attainment and economic activity on their fertility level and contraceptive behaviors. However, little attention, has been given to an inverse casual link, examining the impact of family planning program and low fertility on women’s empowerment. In this proposed study, the author proposes studying the impact of contraceptive use and delaying childbearing on women’s educational and employment improvement, as indicators of women’s empowerment, in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, in which the total fertility rate is estimated at 1.56 children per woman (Erfani, 2010). In Iran, where employment opportunities for women are limited—only 13% of women in the country and 15% in Tehran are employedwomen usually seek an upward social mobility within