Family planning and fertility decline in rural Iran: the impact of rural health clinics.
During the first few years of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and aided by pro-natal government policies, Iranian fertility was on the rise. In a reversal of its population policy, in 1989, the government launched an ambitious and innovative family planning program aimed at rural families. By 2005, the program had covered more than 90% of the rural population and the average number of births per rural woman had declined to replacement level from about 8 births in the mid 1980s. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a particular feature of the program - health houses - on rural fertility, taking advantage of the variation in the timing of their construction across the country. We use three different methods to obtain a range of estimates for the impact of health houses on village-level fertility: difference-in-differences (DID), matching DID, and length of exposure. We find estimates of impact ranging from 4 to 20% of the decline in fertility during 1986-1996.
Salehi-Isfahani
Djavad
D
Department of Economics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. salehi@vt.edu
Abbasi-Shavazi
M Jalal
MJ
Hosseini-Chavoshi
Meimanat
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001721:Birth Intervals; D001723:Birth Rate / Q000639:trends*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016656:Family Planning Policy / Q000639:trends*; D005193:Family Planning Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011057:Politics; D011157:Population Dynamics; D057216:Propensity Score; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012424:Rural Population; D055815:Young Adult