TEHRAN – The marriage rate in Iran has increased by 5 percent over the past [Iranian calendar] year (March 2020-March 2021), despite the coronavirus pandemic, Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, has said.

Despite the pandemic that was expected to lead the marriage rate to a downward trend, the reduction of marriage costs has caused the rate to grow by 5 percent last year, while, divorces have decreased by 4 percent, she explained, ISNA reported on Friday.

Marriage threefold of divorce 

Based on the latest statistics, some 307,349 marriages and 99,679 divorces were registered in the country during the first seven months of the past [Iranian calendar] year.

In December 2020, Seifollah Aboutorabi, the National Organization for Civil Registration spokesman said that during the first 9 months of the past [Iranian calendar] year, some 853,084 births were registered across the country, as well as 397,501 deaths during the same period.

Population growth policies

Official statistics of the country and the forecast of demographic experts indicate that if the trend of decreasing fertility rate, increasing single-child families, and decreasing marriage rate continues for the next 30 years, old age will prevail in the country and one in three people will be over 60-years-old, which will be the beginning of a crisis.

Some 14 policies to support childbearing and the family were announced by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in [the Iranian calendar year] 1393 (March 2014-March 2015) when he stressed that social, cultural, and economic development should be done in accordance with these general policies to support families.

The policies address the need to increase the population and the various dimensions of it, including childbearing, facilitating marriage and strengthening the family, reproductive health, promoting the Iranian-Islamic lifestyle, empowering young people, honoring the elderly, and the environment, which can lead to an increase in the quantity and quality of the population if it is timely and continuous implemented.

Kimia Mohammadzadeh, a member of the working group for women and family at the independent association of the University of Tehran, told Mehr news agency that thus, instead of considering family support and youth marriage, policymakers adopt policies that lead to delays in marriage and family formation.

Childbearing, which should be a public issue, became an inefficient policy due to lack of follow-up, she said.

Most recently, the Majlis (Iranian parliament) has developed a support plan to encourage families to increase childbearing.

The plan stipulates health insurance for infertile couples, providing services and facilities to working women, providing health and nutrition support packages to mothers and children, educational opportunities for student mothers, providing livelihood support to families, and ongoing medical services to pregnant women.

FB/MG