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This review considers sociological perspectives and research on the outcomes and implications of forced and refugee migration for migrants and communities of settlement. Analytic constraints and opportunities posed by concepts of forced and refugee migration and migrants for empirical research are underscored. The tendencies for research on forced and refugee migration to serve policy and programs are addressed in relationship to the conceptualization of processes of displacement as well as research design. A social demographic lens is used to illustrate a record of research on the consequences of forced and refugee migration and settlement. Accordingly, we review empirical literature on patterns of spatial mobility, health and well-being, social and economic integration, and family and community dynamics at different scales. Implications of global issues such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are considered. Analytic issues emerge from the intersections, and lack thereof, between forced migration, refugee studies, and migration policy analysis and provide critical opportunities for contributions by sociologists and social scientists more generally. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 49 is July 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Objectives: This study was conducted to estimate the mean ideal number of children and to determine the overall prevalence of childlessness, one child, two children, as well as three children and more as the ideal number of children in Iran. Further, the study investigated the effect size of the relationship between social factors and ideal fertility. Materials and Methods: To this end, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on all studies on ideal fertility that were published from January 2000 to February 2018. Totally, 37 qualified papers and two national surveys were selected with a total sample size of 37,079 women. The degree of correlation between the ideal fertility and variables was calculated using Spearman’s correlation, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and r by using MedCalc 17 software. Results: The pooled mean ideal fertility by the random effect was 2.25 in Iran. The results of the Cochran test and I2 statistics showed considerable heterogeneity regarding the prevalence of the ideal number of children (Q=1722.0911, PConclusions: Despite the differences in the actual fertility level in different regions of Iran, two children is the the predominant pattern of the number of desired children. This result implies a convergence of fertility ideals in Iran. If desirable conditions for childbearing are provided, fertility could be maintained at the replacement level.

With a population over 80 million, Iran is located in western South Asia. Internal migration data have been collected since 1956, primarily by means of decennial censuses, with questions focusing on lifetime, last residence, and recent (five-year) migration since 2011, duration of residence, reasons for moving and mover characteristics. The 2016 Census data show that Iranians are moderately mobile with an ACMI around 12%. Iran displays a late migration profile, with peaks at 25 for females and 23 for males. Early peaks for males, caused by military service, are followed by another employment-related peak at 32. With nearly 75% of its population residing in cities, Iran is now one of the most urbanised countries in Asia. At an advanced early stage in the urban transition, Iran has been dominated by urban-to-urban migration since the mid-2000s. Low levels of migration effectiveness coupled with low intensities underpin limited population redistribution. Spatial patterns reflect socioeconomic inequalities with net population gains in central provinces around Tehran that turn negative in the east and west peripheries of the country. While limited, population movement has triggered policy concerns about housing costs, traffic congestion in destination areas, and questions around the ageing and feminisation of rural populations.

Background: Sex preference is one of the cultural problems of countries in the field of demographic issues. It can increase the number of pregnancies, reduce the interval between births and delay in seeking prenatal care, which can threaten the health of mother, baby, child and family, especially in traditional societies. Objectives: To determine the role of ethnicity on sex preference of different ethnicities living in North Khorasan Province (Iran). Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using a multistage cluster sampling method and a researcher- made questionnaire of reproductive behavior on 1,000 women from 5 ethnicities (Fars, Turk, Kurd, Turkman and Tat) in North Khorasan Province in the summer of 2016. Data were analyzed by IBM-SPSS version 21, using descriptive statistics, ANOVA, t-test, and logistic regression. A significance level of ≤0.05 was set for examining the study hypotheses. Results: The results showed sex preferences among different ethnicities of North Khorasan Province. The highest level of preference for sons was seen in Turkman (66% vs. 23%). Unlike other ethnic groups, Turkman (21%) and Kurdish people (29.7%) were under pressure from the spouse’s family to give birth to sons. Conclusion: Sex preference, especially among the Turkman ethnic group, which are different in terms of geographical, economic and social conditions, affects the fertility and reproductive behavior of the respondents; and it is necessary to reduce son preference for the health and well-being of children and women

Background: The choice of methods for shaping the effective foresight model has always been challenging. Future studies are supposed to re-integrate and re-frame issues in order to provide novel solutions. It is very difficult to choose from a large number of (about 100) methods from various disciplines and different paradigmatic and methodological roots while avoiding stereotypes. Methods: Involving both the experts of the field and the future researchers, a new approach for selection of method in forward-looking policy is presented, and based on policy challenges, future researchers were asked to prioritize methods to improve population policy by attractiveness and capability criteria. Results: As the final result, four methods were chosen considering the main aspects of attractiveness and capability of each method to improve each specific policy issue. Priorities were determined by calculating the total number of choices by capability of method, multiplied by the attractiveness of methods through the questionnaire to form the foresight model: casual layered analysis (CLA) with 2250 points, scenario with 1596 points, expert panels with 1560 points, and interviews with 1232 points, which were the top four methods, respectively. Conclusions: The path and logic used in this research to select the model of population foresight can be generalized to other public policy areas and can be a methodological basis for other applied interdisciplinary studies.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a remarkable demographic transition over the last three decades. As a result of social, demographic and economic changes, Iran’s fertility declined from 7.0 births per woman in 1980 to around 1.8 to 2.0 in 2011 based on our estimation (McDonald et al. 2015). The initial rise and rapid fall of fertility accompanied by a decline of child mortality led to a post-revolutionary youth bulge in the age distribution that will lead to rapid ageing in the longer-term future. Others have argued that Iran’s fertility has fallen to much lower levels - as low as 1.5 births per woman (eg. Erfani 2013). Such low estimates led to the Government of Iran adopting a pronatalist policy with the aim of increasing fertility, although the components of the policy are still under discussion. Different views have been expressed on the role of family planning and other programs in meeting population policy goals in Iran in the future with some advocating the discontinuation of government assistance to family planning. This paper aims to review the trends and levels of fertility, marriage, and family planning and their implications for policy. Using various datasets and detailed parity-based measures of fertility, the dynamics of fertility regulation practiced by Iranian couples are investigated. Our findings suggest that contraceptive use stabilized before 2000 and postponement of the first child and wide birth intervals are the main contributors to the level of fertility. Therefore, instead of discontinuation of the family planning program, policy to sustain fertility at its present level or a little higher needs to focus upon improving the economic circumstances of young people so that they are able to make less constrained choices about family formation than is the case at present.

In many parts of the world, higher education has increased female chances of paid work and reduced the economic benefits of marriage. In Iran, however, female labour force participation has remained in low rates despite considerable improvements in female education. In the absence of direct economic benefits of education for women, this paper uses data from the 2009 Time Use Survey, representing urban areas of Iran, to explore another pathway of the impact of education on transition to marriage. It is postulated that female education can lead to later marriage by changing women’s role priorities, at least in two ways. While enrolment in education is time-consuming and incompatible with requirements of marital life, higher education can increase the chances and desire for engagement in alternatives to the roles related to marriage. The findings provide partial support for both explanations. These findings not only deepen our understanding about differentials in the time use and the potential pathwa...

This paper uses the published results of successive Iranian censuses (1966–2011) and the 2 % micro-data from the 2011 census to examine the trends and patterns of solo living in Iran. The results show a recent rise in solo living in both rural and urban areas. Furthermore, a convergence in the prevalence of solo living is observed in both areas since the mid-1980s, which has removed their initial differences by the end of the period of study. Solo living is most prevalent among the elderly and to a lesser extent among young men. The fact that the age composition of sole persons has been relatively stable over time but their gender composition has been transformed to a female-dominant pattern provides evidence for both continuity and change in solo living in Iran. The results of multivariate analyses suggest that there are gender norms about living arrangements in Iran, which vary by age.

Taking the years 2011–2016 to frame the initiatives of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) concerning the demography of refugees and forced migration and the preparation of this volume, the world’s population of forcibly displaced persons has nearly doubled, from 35.4 million to 67.8 million persons of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2012, 2017a, b); the number of persons identified by the UNHCR as refugees has increased by over two thirds, from 9.8 to 16.3 million and the number of internally displaced persons has increased from 15.5 to 36.6 million, 137% over this half a decade. Increases in the world’s refugee population have been witnessed at the largest relative scale in Europe, increasing from 1.6 to 5.2 million, and in Africa (excluding northern Africa), from 2.7 to 5.1 million. The most dramatic increases in persons displaced within their own countries has been witnessed within states in the Middle East and North Africa, from 1.8 million at the end of 2011 to 12.2 million at the end of 2016. With these changes comes shifts in the regional distribution of the global population of concern: in 2011, 16% of the world's refugees were hosted in Europe; in 2016 this share had increased to 31%, relative parity with the proportion hosted by the total of countries in southern Africa. While the number of IDPs in southern Africa has increased from 6.9 to 11.2 million, the region’s share of displaced persons worldwide decreased from 44% in 2011 to 31% in 2016, reflecting the large-scale flight of persons within countries in the Middle East, notably Syria; a third of the world’s internally displaced population remains within countries within the Middle East and North Africa at the end of 2016 (UNHCR 2012, 2017a).

The world has experienced large movements, both voluntary and forced, within and outside the continents. Forced migrations originating from some of the countries in Africa and Asia have contributed significantly to the global scale and complexity of international population movements. This chapter illustrates comparative demographic analyses in relationship to the levels and patterns of forced migration in Africa within the context of social demographic perspectives and data sources on migration. Critical consideration is given to the implications for the priorities for demographic research and training on forced and refugees migrations, to the systematic generation and use of data on all stages of the forced migration, and to the importance of dialogue between demographers and forced migration scholars.

Refugee and other forced migrations have increased in scale, complexity and diversity in recent decades. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR 2017) estimates that in 2016 there were a total of 65.6 million displaced persons worldwide, of whom 22.5 million were refugees recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 40.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) within countries, around 3 million asylum seekers with their cases pending and another almost 10 million stateless people. In addition, it has been estimated that in 2014 approximately 19 million people in 100 countries were displaced by disasters, 184 million over the 7 years prior to 2014, most triggered by climate and weather related events such as floods, storms and wildfires (Yonetani 2015). These large numbers of people constitute an important, but understudied, element of global population dynamics. Moreover, there is no evidence that the scale and severity of forced migration is being reduced.

Return of refugees and their reintegration into the community of origin has become of great importance among policy makers and researchers in the field of migration studies. The outbreak of civil wars and rising number of refugees, especially in recent years, raised concerns about the issue, and therefore, the return of refugees as one of the key solutions to the refugee problem is becoming increasingly important. However, forced migrants and refugees have faced many difficulties and failures in their experiences of returning. This chapter aims to examine the repatriation/return migration and sustainability of return by emphasizing the concept of ‘reintegration’ and its social, economic and demographic dimensions. In addition, findings from a survey conducted in Afghanistan on the return of Afghan refugees from Iran to their country of origin are presented in order to give a better understanding of return to and reintegration processes in post-conflict contexts.

Most migration researchers have focused their attention either at the aggregate (community/state/national) – or alternatively at the individual level in studying patterns, causes and consequences of the move. However, there has been a major shift in recent demographic studies by considering family and household as the unit of analysis. This chapter examines the impacts of refugee and forced migration on family formation and dynamics. In doing so, the chapter identifies various aspects of family that are affected by forced movements. The degree to which family is influenced prior to, during, and after an involuntary move is discussed. Various hypotheses on the relationship between forced migration and family change are elaborated. The demographic data needed for the analysis of family change in each of these stages are assessed, and the gaps in the information and data are presented. An illustration of the impact of forced migration on family dynamics will be made using the data on Afghan refugees in Iran. Having reviewed the research on forced migration and family, the current status and future direction of research on the topic are proposed.

The world has experienced large population movements, both voluntary and forced, within and between continents. In recent years, forced migrations originating from some of the countries in Asia have contributed significantly to the global scale and complexity of international population movements. This chapter illustrates comparative demographic analysis in relationship to the levels and patterns of forced migration in Asia within the context of social demographic perspectives and data sources on migration. The characteristics of migration patterns in Asia as compared to other regions are described. Critical consideration is given to the driving forces behind refugee and forced migration in the region and, finally, to the implications for the priorities for demographic research and training in Asia.

Objectives: The aims of the study were to determine the prevalence, types and socio-economic correlates of consanguineous marriages in Iran, and to gauge the extent to which consanguinity influenced fertility, pregnancy outcomes and the expression of genetic disorders in the present-day population. Methods: Data on the prevalence of consanguinity and birth outcomes in the first marriages of 5,515 women were abstracted from the 2005 Iran Low Fertility Study [Hosseini-Chavoshi et al: Fertility and Contraceptive Use Dynamics in Iran: Special Focus on Low Fertility Regions. Canberra, Australian National University, 2007]. The results of associated socio-economic variables were collated and assessed by Pearson's χ2 analysis and logistic regression. Results: Overall, 37.4% of the marriages were consanguineous (α = 0.0149), but with major differences between 4 representative populations. Consanguinity was higher among rural couples, older marriage cohorts, women marrying at a younger age, and women with lower levels of formal education. In general, consanguineous couples had higher mean numbers of pregnancies, live births and surviving children. Conclusions: Given declining family sizes, a rapid urbanization and increased educational and employment opportunities, it seems inevitable that consanguineous marriages will decline in prevalence in Iran, albeit more slowly in more traditional rural communities. Predictably, there will be a concomitant reduction in the incidence of recessive genetic disorders, but this is against a background transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases.

The present paper examines the level and correlates of unintended pregnancies among young women in the Islamic Republic of Iran using a sub-sample of 4,402 ever-married women aged between 15 and 24 from the 2010 Iran Multi-Indicator Demographic and Health Survey (IrMIDHS). Multivariate analysis is then applied to the 2005 Iran Low Fertility Survey (ILFS) to explore the experience of pregnancy termination in young ages. The comparison of the outcomes of wanted and unintended pregnancies shows that the proportion of both induced and spontaneous abortions are significantly higher for unintended than for wanted pregnancies. The higher rates of abortion among the more recent pregnancy cohorts (1995-2005) indicate an increasing trend of pregnancy termination in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The paper concludes with a recommendation stressing the importance of continued provision of family planning services to young couples, in order to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy and to avoid unsafe and clandestine abortions that may cause numerous irreversible adverse effects on women's health.

In 2006, around 1.2 million documented Afghans remained in Iran, of whom half were second generation. This paper is based on the results of a qualitative study conducted in three settings: Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan, and draws on data collected via 80 in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions with second generation Afghans in Iran. The aim of the paper is to explore the adaptation of second-generation Afghans in Iran, particularly in relation to marriage and family formation. The results show that educational achievements and occupational skills of the second-generation Afghans in Iran facilitated their adaptation to the host society, and inspired different marriage and family behaviors and aspirations in comparison with the first generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing discussion of the relationship between migration and development attention is focused almost entirely on voluntary migration. Little attention is given to the development of consequences and potential of forced migration. Yet, forced migration, especially refugees, makes up a significant proportion of international moves, most of it being south-south in nature. While the raison d’etre of forced migration is fleeing persecution and seeking refuge from it, the migration can have important economic outcomes. This paper addresses this issue by examining the educational and occupational outcomes of Afghan refugees in Iran. There is significant upward mobility among the refugees, especially between the first and second generations. It is argued that this represents potential for facilitating development.

Iran has had replacement fertility since 2000. Upholding a small family size has led some couples to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Abortion is, however, permitted only on medical grounds in Iran. Using data from the Iran Low Fertility Survey, this study assessed sociodemographic correlates of abortion among a random sample of 5526 ever-married women aged 15-54 years, and used in-depth interviews to explore reasons for and psychological consequences of abortion among 40 women who had experienced an unintended pregnancy. Although social and economic concerns were the main reasons cited for seeking abortion, women experienced anxiety and depression when seeking pregnancy termination and thereafter. Social stigmatization arose from a belief that abortion is sinful and that misfortune experienced thereafter is punishment. Inadequate knowledge and misunderstanding of relevant Sharia laws discouraged women from seeking care when they experienced complications. Iran's reproductive health policies should be revised to integrate pre- and postabortion counseling.

The mean age at marriage of Iranian women increased by three years between the mid-1980s and 2000 during a period of great socio-economic change, particularly affecting the 1971–1975 and 1976–1980 birth cohorts. This paper analyses the marriage timing and life course experience of these cohorts of women and highlights the contribution that ethnicity and changes in the socio-economic context made to the sharp marriage delay experienced by the 1976–1980 birth cohort. A discrete time hazard model is applied to the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey data, which are linked to a range of time-varying district-level contextual variables created from the 1986 and 1996 Iranian censuses. The findings suggest that the marriage postponement experienced by the younger birth cohort is related to improvements in women's education and can partly be explained by the increased opportunity costs of marriage, which resulted from limited access to education after marriage. The findings also suggest that differences in marriage timing between areas predominated by certain ethnic groups became less evident for the younger birth cohort.

High parity has been hypothesised to lead to a shorter and less healthy life. Using the 2007 Taft Ageing Health and Fertility Survey consisting of 696 women aged 50–79, this paper examines the extent to which women’s health in middle and older ages is affected by their childbearing histories. The results show that high parity (> 8) is associated with a reduction of GP-rated health by 0.094 points on a scale from 1 to 10. These health reductions are four times as large as those of an extra year of age, and are robust to controlling for birth interval, age, area of residence, education, marital status, work history, economic satisfaction and surviving daughters. There is a positive but curvilinear relationship between shorter birth intervals (< 2 years) and GP-rated health accounting for socio-demographic factors. Our analysis suggests that parity and birth intervals, along with socio-demographic characteristics, affect women’s well-being in later life.

Reconstructions and projections of populations by age, sex, and educational attainment for 120 countries since 1970 are used to assess the global relationship between improvements in human capital and democracy. Democracy is measured by the Freedom House indicator of political rights. Similar to an earlier study on the effects of improving educational attainment on economic growth, the greater age detail of this new dataset resolves earlier ambiguities about the effect of improving education as assessed using a global set of national time series. The results show consistently strong effects of improving overall levels of educational attainment, of a narrowing gender gap in education, and of fertility declines and the subsequent changes in age structure on improvements in the democracy indicator. This global relationship is then applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past two decades Iran has experienced the world's most rapid fertility decline associated with massive increases in female education. The results show that based on the experience of 120 countries since 1970, Iran has a high chance of significant movement toward more democracy over the following two decades.

Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. This has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-à-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we first examine the “Iranian ART revolution” that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Then we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women’s socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Thus, the benefits of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome their infertility through ARTs, not all women’s lives are improved by these technologies.The Iranian civil law emphasizes that family is a warm and placid institute founded upon the authority of the husband and the father. Motherhood and doing housework are the woman’s responsibility, and outside work is the man’s; and the man is the breadwinner. Such policies reinforce the traditional patriarchal relations within the family. (Sarokhani and Raf’atjah 2004)

Low fertility has become an important area of demographic research as fertility in many countries has fallen to levels well below replacement. Advanced countries have experienced low fertility trends for decades (United Nations, 2000), and some are experiencing lowest-low fertility (i.e. TFR below 1.3) (Kohler, Billari and Ortega, 2002; Caldwell, 2006). Less developed countries, by contrast, have recently experienced low fertility levels, and there no longer seem to be any barriers to most countries reaching replacement level and subsequently falling below that level. According to the United Nations, by 2000, around 44 per cent of the world population lived in countries where fertility had fallen below the replacement level. This proportion is expected to increase to 67 per cent by the year 2015 (United Nations, 2000). According to the United Nations median variant projections, approximately 80 per cent of the world’s population is projected to live in countries with below-replacement fertility before mid-century (United Nations, 2002a). Several East and North-East, as well as North and Central Asian countries have attained below replacement in recent decades (Gubhaju and Moriki-Durand, 2003; Atoh, 2001; Hirschman, Chamratrithirong and Guest, 1994; Knodel, Chamratrithirong and Debavalya, 1987). However, countries have attained low fertility in different ways (Perelli-Harris, 2005) and thus, every country and region may have a unique experience in reaching low fertility. For instance, Hirschman, Chamratrithirong and Guest (1994) have argued that the distinctive attributes of East Asian countries such as Hong Kong, China; Singapore; the Republic of Korea; and Taiwan Province of China in terms of rapid economic growth and Confucian cultural heritage would not make them a model for fertility decline in other countries in Asia.

Background Nowadays, nearly half of the world population lives in societies with low fertility or the below-replacement fertility. This potentially grounds the critical situation of reduction in the workforce and causes the aging of population due to an overall increase in life expectancy and standard of living. Hence, population and its transitions including the issue of fertility decline has become a topic of intense debate in the agenda-setting and policy-making processes in both the developed and developing countries. In this view, what can practically be done to respond to the fertility decline that entails effectively addressing the determinants of fertility change? In line with the literature, how people form their marriages or patterns of marriage is amongst influencing factors which potentially affect their reproductive practices as diverse societies recognize different conventions for marriage. This study is to examine women’s reproductive practices by the various patterns of marriage using the explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Methods/design This study has an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, the follow-up explanations variant model, with two strands. This design will be implemented in two distinct phases. In the first phase, a cross-sectional quantitative study will be done using a cluster sampling strategy on 850 married women 15–49 years old living in Babol city, Iran. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the results of the quantitative phase, researchers will implement a qualitative research in the second phase of this study. This design will provide an explanation of the quantitative research results using the qualitative evidence. Discussion As patterns of marriage have implications for the status of women, their health and fertility, the result of this study can provide a rich source of information for the required health-related interventions and policies are required to put the demographic changes on the right track at micro and macro level and improve the reproductive practices of women at micro level.

Confounding all conventional wisdom, the fertility rate in the Islamic Republic of Iran fell from around 7.0 births per woman in the early 1980s to 2.1 births per woman in 2000. That this, the largest and fastest fall in fertility ever recorded, should have occurred in one of the world's few Islamic Republics demands explanation. The paper addresses this issue in three parts. The second part is its core: a description of fertility levels, trends and patterns in Iran by rural and urban areas and provinces in the 1972–2000 period. Own-children data from the 1986 and 1996 Censuses as well as the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) allow us to analyse single-year movements of fertility over the last three decades. This demographic description is proceeded by a socio-political history of Iran in the years 1970–2000, providing a context for the demographic changes. We conclude with some speculations linking specific socio-economic and political changes to the demographic change. Our concluding argume...

The revived family planning programme of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been exceptionally successful by international standards. The contraceptive prevalence rate has risen to around 74 per cent according to the Iran Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2000. A wide ranges of modern methods including male and female sterilization has been made available in both urban and rural areas. The wide gap between urban and rural areas has also been narrowed considerably. Despite this high level of contraceptive use there have been indications of unintended pregnancies suggesting the existence of unmet contraceptive needs among couples in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Given the evidence of unmet needs a study focusing on this issue would contribute to the quality of service delivery in this fast moving programme and also contribute to diminishing the social and psychological consequences of unwanted births. The present study uses a large dataset from the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) to explore the levels and correlates of unwanted pregnancies. Unfortunately the 2000 IDHS did not include sufficient questions in order to measure unmet need. Thus the focus of the present study concerns only unintended pregnancy. (excerpt)

This paper examines the validity of the own-children method of fertility estimates derived from the 1991 Census by a detailed investigation of mortality assumptions, the presence of non-own children, age misreporting and undercount. A comparison of fertility measures derived alternatively from the census using the own-children method and from vital statistics for the period 1987–91 indicates remarkably similar rates for Australia-born women, and plausible results for long established migrant groups. The own-children fertility levels for some recently arrived migrant groups, however, were found to be misleading. It is suggested that the own-children method is useful for the study of differential current fertility in Australia.

This article is motivated by the idea that development and developmental hierarchies have been constructed and embraced for centuries by scholars and policy makers and have been disseminated among ordinary people. Recent research shows that most people have constructions of development hierarchies that are similar across countries. In this article, we extend this research by examining how basic social factors influence ordinary people’s beliefs about development and developmental hierarchies in six countries: Argentina, China, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, and the United States. Results show that the understanding and perception of developmental hierarchies vary by gender and education. These results are important because they show how distinct groups of people have differential access to information or ideas. Fil: Binstock, Georgina. Centro de Estudios de Poblacion; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Thornton, Arland. University of Michigan; Estados Unidos Fil: Abbasi Shavazi, Mohammad J.. University of Tehran; Irán Fil: Ghimire, Dirgha. University of Michigan; Estados Unidos Fil: Xie, Yu. University of Michigan; Estados Unidos Fil: Yount, Kathryn M.. University of Emory; Estados Unidos

Many scholars have offered structural and ideational explanations for the fertility changes occurring around the world. This paper focuses on the influence of developmental idealism—a schema or set of beliefs endorsing development, fertility change, and causal connections between development and fertility. Developmental idealism is argued to be an important force affecting both population policy and the fertility behavior of ordinary people. We present new survey data from ordinary people in six countries—Argentina, China, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, and the United States—about the extent to which developmental idealism is known and believed. We ask individuals if they believe that fertility and development are correlated, that development is a causal force in changing fertility levels, and that fertility declines enhance the standard of living and intergenerational relations. We also ask people about their expectations concerning future trends in fertility in their countries and whether they approve or disapprove of the trends they expect. The data show widespread linkage in the minds of ordinary people between fertility and development. Large fractions of people in these six settings believe that fertility and development are correlated, that development reduces fertility, and that declines in fertility foster development. Many also expect and endorse future declines in fertility.

Scholars and policy makers have for centuries constructed and used developmental hierarchies to characterize different countries. The hypotheses motivating this paper are that such social constructions have been circulated internationally, are constructed similarly in various countries, and follow the social constructions of elite international organizations, such as the United Nations. This paper uses data from fifteen surveys in thirteen diverse countries to study how developmental hierarchies are understood in everyday life. Our research shows that most people have constructions of developmental hierarchies that are similar across countries and are similar to the developmental hierarchies constructed by the United Nations. These findings suggest that developmental hierarchies are widely understood around the world and are widely available to ordinary people as they make decisions about many aspects of life.

Using data from the 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey, we examined birth control use between marriage and first pregnancy. We focused on the post-1990 increase in birth control use and develop two explanations. The first posits that birth control use reflects a new marriage form, the conjugal marriage, which places a heightened value on the spousal relationship while deemphasizing the centrality of parenthood. A second explanation stresses the use of a new resource, effective birth control, within an Iranian-Islamist view of marriage. Key to this explanation is the role of the state—Iranian political/religious actors encourage early marriage and the use of birth control. Although the explanations could be complementary, evidence provides more support for the latter.

SummaryConsanguineous marriage has been the culturally preferred form of marriage in Iran. This paper examines the extent to which education, urbanization and changes in modes of economic production have affected the incidence of consanguineous marriage and attitudes towards consanguineous marriages. The 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey conducted in the four provinces of Gilan, Sistan and Baluchistan, Yazd and West Azarbaijan provides information on the degree of relationship of marriage partners from around 6550 ever-married women aged 15–49. Attitudinal data were also obtained. Overall, the level of marriage to biological relatives ranged from 23% in Gilan to 78% in Sistan and Baluchistan. The paper finds that the practice of marriage to biological relatives has remained surprisingly resilient in the face of modernizing influences and that ethnicity, province and area of residence remain important determinants. On the other hand, attitudes have shifted towards marriage with a non-relative. Anthropological research would illuminate the processes of consanguineous marriage in Iran.