Encouraging Childbearing with Empty Pockets; Ineffective Policies

With Iran's population growth rate dropping to 1.6%, the Islamic Republic's officials have implemented incentive policies for childbearing. However, experts argue that these policies are not effective against the real costs of living. Expenses related to pregnancy, childbirth, nutrition, healthcare, and education, alongside low incomes and high inflation, have led many families to refrain from having children. According to a field report from the state news agency ILNA, the minimum wage for a family of three in 2024 is about 10 million and 892 thousand tomans, while experts estimate the minimum livelihood basket to be at least 30 million tomans. This significant gap has caused many families to struggle. Even households with two earners or those working multiple shifts are still financially pressured. In a report published by ILNA, a citizen named Hamid, one of the parents who, despite supportive laws, has struggled to cover his child's expenses, states, "Our costs after having a child equaled our income, which was halved. I have no choice but to find a second job to make ends meet." One of the supportive policies is a childbearing loan set at 40 million tomans for the first child. However, obtaining this loan comes with numerous obstacles. Hamid, who applied for the loan, says, "I waited for a long time to receive a code from the Central Bank. After that, I faced problems finding a suitable guarantor. Even after completing the documents, the bank announced that it currently has no budget to pay the loan. Ultimately, after several months of running around, 37 million tomans was deposited." However, this amount is insignificant compared to living costs. Hamid explains, "Just a week after birth, our newborn fell ill and was hospitalized in a private hospital. The cost of this hospitalization alone was 22 million tomans." In another part of the report regarding insufficient support for working women, Samaneh, a mother with 15 years of work experience, had to leave her job. She states, "To continue working, hiring a nanny was so expensive that my income became nearly zero. Ultimately, I decided to resign." She also mentions regarding the childbearing loan, "I applied five months after my child's birth, but due to not having a guarantor, I was unable to receive it." Various examples in this report indicate that the middle class, which once had hopes for advancement, is now struggling to meet its basic expenses. Families that previously lived in large cities are now forced to migrate to smaller towns. Some have even turned to freelance work, but living costs remain beyond their financial capabilities. Experts believe that childbearing incentive policies cannot have an impact on increasing birth rates without improving the economic situation and increasing real support, and urban advertisements are not sufficient for families unable to meet their most basic needs. This comes as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, in the early 2010s, criticized family planning and birth control policies from the 1970s and 1980s in Iran, calling for the country's population to increase from 78 million to about 200 million. Following this request from Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the "Comprehensive Population and Family Excellence Bill" in 2015, which banned access to contraceptives and voluntary sterilization. In the fall of 2021, the Guardian Council approved the "Youth Population and Family Support Law," which, despite its title, imposed severe restrictions on women's reproductive rights, including access to birth control and sterilization, prohibiting abortion, and continuing systematic discrimination against them. Since then, the Islamic Republic's governments have approved various loans and incentive policies, but in practice, the livelihood problems of a large segment of society have pushed childbearing out of societal priorities. The closure of clinics, the arrest of doctors and secretaries for performing abortions, the failure of the "Youth Population" law; the statistics on "legal abortions" have not changed, and the government's deflection regarding overcrowding in schools in Tehran.