IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/wsi/wschap/9781783267347_0018.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Family Planning and Female Empowerment in Iran

In: Women, Work and Welfare in the Middle East and North Africa The Role of Socio-demographics, Entrepreneurship and Public Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Djavad Salehi-Isfahani

Abstract

This chapter examines the impact of an important Iranian government policy — the construction of rural health clinics and promotion of family planning — on the fertility and education of rural women. The evidence shows that the direct effect of family planning on fertility was rather modest: at best we can attribute one-fifth of the decline in fertility to the presence of clinics in villages. But the government's push to win acceptance of family planning played a crucial role in helping women to overcome the traditional norms against women's participation in the fertility decisions of the family. The newfound ability of young rural women to seek independent advice from health practitioners shifted power over this important family decision from men and the extended family to women. At the societal level, it broadened the definition of a ‘good Muslim woman’ from one who obeys her husband and primarily engages in childbearing and domestic work, to one who has a say in important decisions about childbearing and child education.

Suggested Citation

  • Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, 2016. "Family Planning and Female Empowerment in Iran," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Nadereh Chamlou & Massoud Karshenas (ed.), Women, Work and Welfare in the Middle East and North Africa The Role of Socio-demographics, Entrepreneurship and Public Policies, chapter 18, pages 507-523, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9781783267347_0018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9781783267347_0018
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9781783267347_0018
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9781783267347_0018. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/worldscibooks .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.