نشریه نامه انجمن جمعیت شناسی ایران
پیاپی 16 (پاییز و زمستان 1392)

Economic theories have significantly helped to the explanation of fertility behavior. Since 1960 that Becker provided an economic analysis of fertility and then Easterlin challenged Becker's analysis in 1966 to this time, economics of fertility has experienced the vast theoretical and empirical extensions within Chicago-Columbia and Pennsylvania schools. The former uses neoclassical pure economic theory and positivist methodology and then focuses on demand side in which its key variable is price of parents’ time while the latter is based on the mixture of economic theory with sociology and accentuates on supply side whereas its key variable is relative income. In Chicago model, the supply is exclusively determined by biological factors such as fecundity while in Pennsylvania model, supply is narrowed down behavioral factors such as breastfeeding. To test the credibility of two models, the evidence is provided from Iran. The data in years 1965-2013 is used to estimate the effect of some variables such as income, education and female labor force participation on fertility. Results show that both models are right and helpful in explaining fertility behavior and they are complementary to each other.

This paper aims to determine fertility intention among women who are about to marry in Nayshaboor city and also assess the role of individualism in fertility intention. This is based on a survey conducted among 415 women aged 10-39 who are about to marry and attended premarital counselling courses to do premarital routin examinations during months of Aban and Azar 1392 (November & December, 2013). The instrument of data collection was a constructed questionnaire. Dependent variable was fertility intention and independent variable was the scale of individualism. Confounding variables comprised of attitudes on values of children and selected demographic variables. The results showed that individualism is a determinant factor of fertility intentions among new generation of womne and other correlates such as education and employment impart their influence through individualism. Therefore, it seems that if population programs could make childbearing compatible with evidences of women’s self actualisations such as education, employment and other social activities, they can be successful in encouraging childbearing among new generation.

This paper is from a research that was conducted with the title of the factors affecting attitude difference of girls and their mothers towards childbearing by case study of pre-school girls and their mothers in the city of Sari. This study briefly reviews some classic theories and uses suggested theories of the recent decades and also the intermediate variables model, population and gender equality regimes of McDonald and also John Simon's social promoting and identity theory to the desirable investigation. The four independent components include moral obligation (the theory of John Simon), assumption of a child (of the population regimes), belief in gender equality (the theory of gender equality of McDonald) and the desire to progress (from the theory of social prompting) with assumption component of childbearing as extraction dependent variable and survey method in 360 operational sample units. To identify the attitude difference of mother and daughters, U-Mann-Whitney test was used and significant tests and Multi-variable regression analysis were used to determine how much of the variance of the dependent variables is explained by each independent variable. The results confirmed the effect of each of the independent variables (e.g. ethical commitment, a belief in gender equality, the desire to progress, assumption of a child)on dependent variable (e.g. mothers and daughter's attitude toward childbearing) and significantly revealed differences between mothers and daughters.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the elderly do contribute to the GDP of Iran and to estimate the economic value of unpaid work of the elderly at home. The elderly’s work at home, are not compensated monetarily, consequently such contributions are not reflected at national accounting system and GDP. Considering the current trends in population pyramid and the shift toward higher ages, the neglect of this issue, might lead to formation of an unjustified and negative attitude towards the elderly and population aging in Iran. We have used the “Time Use Survey Data of Iran,” to estimate the economic value of elderly’s unpaid work among urban households for the period of 20082009. The results indicate that the economic value of unpaid work of the elderly in Iranian households amounts to 1.65 percent of GDP roughly equal to 55 billion Rials a year. A significant part of such economic value of the unpaid work of the elderly in Iran, consist of unpaid house work, which amounts to 51 billion Rials. 38 billion Rials of this is created by female and 13 billion Rials by the male elderly. Estimating the economic value of unpaid work by the elderly and its’ contribution to the GDP, highlights their contribution to the development of the society and can play an important role in advocating elderly sensitive policy making, and improvement of social and economic status of the elderly, particularly the female elderly in Iran.

One of the most prominent concerns of scholars in the field of humanities, including demography is inequalities. Mortality inequality is an important index of unfair distribution of resources among population. The aim of this research is to study mortality inequalities between rural and urban women in Iran. For this purpose we used reported data of “Registration and Classification of Causes of Death” In 2008. First the data were corrected with regard to under-registration and misreporting of age, then mortality levels were estimated and finally, using decomposition technique, the contribution of age groups and three categories of causes of death are elaborated. Results show that life expectancy at birth for urban women is 3.9 years higher than that of rural women and the excess of infant mortality in rural areas is responsible for 30.6 percent life expectancy of the mortality inequality. Non-communicable diseases have the highest effect in lower life expectancy of rural women, though and then injuries and deaths due to infectious and parasitic diseases, have also a minor contribution to this inequality.

Healthy lifestyle is known as pattern of collective behaviors that engage in risky health problems and their causes and reasons of health to ensure. Accomplished Explanations mainly have considered the determinants such as structural and social factors and individual choices. This survey, as a similar approach, focused on the capital related causes that influence individual choices, and affect the healthy lifestyle of the elderly in Tehran. Research findings show that almost two-thirds of elderly had a moderate healthy lifestyle. Considering the types of capital, 56/6 Percentage of research subjects had average economic capital and 62/2 percent had average social capital. More importantly, 74/4 percent of elderly had low cultural capital. Test of the assumptions showed that social and economic capital are significantly associated with healthy lifestyle of elderly, while cultural capital is not significant. Results of regression analysis showed that 16 percent of elderly healthy lifestyle is affected by social and economic capital changes, and among the types of capital, social capital and economic capital with 0/186 and 0/136 beta coefficient, had greatest impact on the healthy lifestyle of the elderly. Keywords: Aging, Healthy lifestyle, Chronic Diseases, Social Capital, Economic Capital, Cultural Capital.

Two waves of modernization, including white revolution (especially land reform and health programs) in 1960s and birth control programs in 1990s have been influencing demographic aspects of family institution in Kurdistan. This study tries to describe these impacts from a different point of view. Based on qualitative methodology and adopting depth interview, observation and thematic analysis techniques the processes and outcomes of implementation of these programs have come to be found. The results show that white revolution provided a context to transform extended family to core family and to experience the reduction of mortality. Birth control programs encountered Kurdish family to unpreceded low childbearing, small size of family and unintended fertility. Consequently, the major parts of current situation of family’s demographic structure refer to modernization elements, and undoubtedly continuation of this process brings new features of family changes to this society. The point is that the modernization has changed the life cycle of family in Kurdistan.