A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON AGE STRUCTURE TRANSITION IN SELECTED MUSLIM COUNTRIES BY EMPHASIS ON IRAN: TRENDS, PROCESS AND CHALLENGES

According to estimates, more than 5/1 billion Muslims live around the world. Of this population, 45 percent are living in six Muslim countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. Until now, many factors such as levels of development and geographical regions have been considered a basis for the analysis of demographic trends. But it has been less attention to religion as a determinant of age structure changes. The story of demographic transition and its dimensions is essentially based on the pattern of Western Christian societies. Currently, many development experts believe that the development linear models are not efficient enough; hence there should be more attention to the social, cultural similarities and differences between countries and communities. In this paper, according to this assumption that Muslim countries will experience a certain pattern of demographic transition, the age transition will be discussed. In this paper, similarities and differentials of trends and patterns of fertility, mortality and especially age structure are studied in six Muslim countries.