PRE-MARRIAGE COUPLES FERTILITY ATTITUDE FOLLOWING RECENT CHILDBEARING PERSUASIVE POLICIES IN IRAN

Following a phenomenal fertility decline during recent two decades in Iran، the childbearing persuasive policy has been implemented. The goals of this study were to determine: the pre-marriage couples` fertility attitude and demographic determinants of couples` fertility attitude.

This was a cross-sectional study on 420 pre-marriage clients referred to Urmia Pre-marriage counseling center in 2013. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire.

Both ideal and desired child number for most of the participants were lower than two، with no difference between males and females (p > 0. 05). For those males and females which sex of the child were important، male preference was dominant (p= 0. 00). Only 18. 2% of males and 9. 6% of females were agreeing with the government in increasing childbearing. Having university graduation، being student and living in small families leads to tendency to have female child (p< 0. 05).

The findings confirmed the noticeable change in fertility practices of Iranian couples which is largely dependent to change in their fertility preferences in child number and sex. It seems that change in governmental population policy have no effect on couples` fertility attitudes.