Abstract

PIP: Studies providing evidence concerning literacy's relationship to fertility in Iran are reviewed. Reliable demographic data are unavailable for Iran before the 1st census in 1956. The 1966 census revealed a reversal of the normally expected larger female population, with a sex ratio of 107 men for every 100 women. The female population in Iran is accorded low status; only 29.6% of the population over the age of 10 was literate according to the 1966 census. A negative relationship between literacy or levels of education and fertility seems to have become a basic tenet of demographic theory. The hypothesis that as a woman's education increases she has fewer children has been confirmed in numerous studies, and, in response to this information, the Iranian government has sponsored several projects which incorporate family planning education into literacy projects. In view of the associations noted in other studies of the relationship between education and fertility, it seems wise to examine the effects of education on fertility in Iran. None of the studies reviewed give conclusive evidence that literacy is unrelated to fertility in Iran. Several of the studies reveal built-in biases: the husbands in Siassi's study were all military personnel; Gulick interviewed women who were already attending family planning clinics; Edlefsen and Liberman made some highly abstract and speculative predictions, and Lieberman et al. were basically measuring incomes instead of education. All of the studies do, however, give some indication of an irregular effect of education on fertility in Iran and swggest the need for further study of this variable.