Study of fertility desires of Kurdish women in city of Mahabad:

Over the past few decades, major demographic changes have taken place in Iran and fertility has fallen unprecedentedly, so that today the fertility rate in many parts of the country is less than the necessary level for replacement of generations. Undoubtedly, any planning and plan of action to prevent further decline of fertility among families, needs to study of women's childbearing desires and it’s determinants in different areas in Iran. The aim of this paper is to study of childbearing desires of Kurdish women in the city of Mahabad. Data collected by the survey conducted among 700 households in April 2012 in the city of Mahabad. The results indicate that the 61.4 percent of women are wants to stop childbearing. Study of women’s childbearing desires according to their children surviving shows that 39.3 percent of women without a child or with one child, 77.7 percent with two or three children, and 86 percent who have more than three children may not want to have another child. Bivariate analysis showed that there are significant differences in childbearing intentions among women by different socioeconomic, demographic and cultural characteristics. Results of multivariate analysis indicate the fact that the cultural characteristics alone may not be crucial in predicting the probability of not wanting to childbearing. In fact, a combination of socioeconomic, demographic, and cultural characteristics gives a better explanation of women childbearing desires. Based on these findings, it should be said that in adopting the new population policy, pronatalist policies should be focused mainly on married women without any children or have one child.