TEHRAN – A total of 670 trillion rials (nearly $2 billion) have been provided as low-profit loans to couples over the first six months of the current [Iranian calendar] year (began on March 21), director of youth social development and planning office of the Ministry of Sports and Youth, has said.

The number of marriage loan payments in the first half of this year and compared to the same period last year shows a growth of about 40 percent, IRNA quoted Mehdi Mottaqifar as saying on Sunday.

During the aforementioned period, the total number of people who registered for marriage loans was 977,071 people, of which 486,399 people have been paid marriage loans, he stated.

He went on to say that some 1,731,041 people have registered to receive childbearing loans, of which only 383,377 loans have been granted.

In the specialized field of marriage and family, there are 430 counseling centers in the country. In addition, using the capacity of expert counselors, we also set up marriage and family counseling offices in cities with a high rate of divorce, he explained.

Marriage three times divorce

During the first three months of the current [Iranian calendar] year which began on March 21, some 142,298 marriages and 44,159 divorces were registered across the country.

Of the total number of marriages registered in the first three months of this year, the most are related to the provinces of Tehran with 16,225 cases, Khorasan Razavi with 12,401 cases, and Khuzestan with 10,939 cases.

Challenges caused by divorce and marriage rate

Official statistics of the country and the forecast of demographic experts indicate that if the trend of decreasing fertility rate, increasing single-child families, declining marriage rate, and increasing divorce rate continues for the next 30 years, old age will prevail in the country and one in three people will be over 60-years-old, which will be the beginning of a crisis.

“Several socioeconomic factors, including urbanization, education, financial issues, first marriage age, increasing divorce rate, as well as increased access to family planning services along with increased time gap between the firstborn and marriage, lead to decreased fertility rate.

But the problem in Iran is the pace of decline, which is very high. So, we have to look for the reason that increased the pace,” she explained.

The Majlis (Iranian Parliament) approved on March 16 to implement a population growth and family support plan for 7 years to change the declining trend of childbearing.

The plan stipulates health insurance for infertile couples, providing services and facilities to working women, providing health and nutrition support packages to mothers and children, educational opportunities for student mothers, providing livelihood support to families, and ongoing medical services to pregnant women.

As the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has emphasized that the national development plans should focus on population growth, and on the other hand, the Expediency Council seeks a one-year extension of the Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021), it was decided to implement the plan for 7 years.

The downward trend of population growth gradually decreases and reaches zero, then becomes negative. Negative population growth causes the population to disappear in the long run.

It is estimated that population growth will reach zero in 2040 and then becomes negative, so the biggest concern is that Iran's population will age in the coming years, fertility will decline, and the population of youth will decrease.

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