The study of family individualization in Iran with emphasis on the structural and functional changes trend of families (from 1957 to 2014)

Individualization means that in the course of social institution's decline, people reproduce their life-world. The current research with emphasis on the family, studies the demographic changes in Iran. The changes such as rising of divorce rate and rapid decline of fertility rate show that Iranian families have been changed. In this research, the changes have been conceptualized and investigated by using the family individualization indicators. Paying attention to the importance and place of family in Iran the purpose of the study is, answering to this question , is it possible to speak about the individualization of family in Iran or not? For this purpose, family demographic changes trend was studied with emphasis on divorce, marriage and fertility indicators from 1957 to 2014 based on the trend analysis; the current study was conducted based on the data and information from Iran National Statistical Centre and also based on a set of valid national reports both in national and provincial levels where the relationship between the demographic indicators of family individualization with a set of social development indicators were statistically compared. The research findings show that demographic changes of families in Iran have a clear trend in the course of individualization; these changes were observed in all the 31 provinces of country, but the size and intensity of changes were due to the social and economic developments level rather than the cultural and geographical differences.