Unintended pregnancies in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Levels and correlates

The first family planning programme in the Islamic Republic of Iran started in 1966 and continued until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The programme only slightly affected fertility. During the period 1966-1976, the population of the Islamic Republic of Iran experienced a modest fertility decline, but this was restricted to urban areas (Mirzaie, 1998; Aghajanian and Mehryar, 1999). Shortly after the Revolution, the family planning programme was suspended, although the provision of family planning services continued. In addition, the new Government adopted a pronatalist approach encouraging earlier marriage in the society. The eight-year war with Iraq also created a pronatalist atmosphere in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A rationing system was introduced for food and basic necessities, and this was helpful to large families. Two years after the revelation of the high population growth rate by the 1986 Census, the government population policy was reversed and a new antinatalist programme was officially inaugurated in December 1989. The details of this fundamental policy reversal and its success in such a short period of time have been elaborated elsewhere (Aghajanian, 1995; Mehryar and others, 2001; Abbasi-Shavazi, 2000a, 2002a; Abbasi-Shavazi and others, 2002; Kaveh-Firouz, 2002).