Mohammad Nazemi, the head of Iran’s Census Organization, says the office registered 1.4 million births and 400,00 thousand deaths annually, adding that 800,000 marriages and 160,000 divorces were registered last year.
In a report given prior to the Friday Mass Prayers in Tehran, Nazemi said 33 percent of the population is childless or has only one child, specifying that 14 percent of the population have no children and 19 percent have only one child.
Nazemi also reported that birth and marriage rates are in decline while death and divorce rates are on the rise.
Population growth in Iran was four percent in 1982, and population control policies in Iran in the decades since then have had a significant impact in controlling growth; as a result, the fertility rate in Iran is now 1.7 percent.
Iran’s Supreme Leader has now changed from his decades of recommending population control and has called for government policies that promote having children.
