A leading Iranian presidential candidate has told women to have more babies.
The country’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who has championed “resistance” against the west, is a staunch conservative. In a recent campaign speech he lashed out at the western view that empowering women can act “as a tool” to speed up economic development. In Islam, he said, “the core identity of women lies in their motherhood”.
But he’s fighting against the tide of Iranian demography, which has undergone a radical shift in the past three decades.
Source: United Nations Population Division
Iranian total fertility rates (TFR) have collapsed from 6.49 per woman in 1974 to 2.17 in 2000 and 1.89 as at 2006. Demographers regard a TFR of 2.1 per woman as what is needed to keep a population stable. So the Iranian birth rate is not even enough to maintain current population levels, let alone to expand them.
Kate Allen
Chris Cook
Emily Cadman
Martin Stabe
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