TEHRAN –Since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 20) until April 29, the Central Bank paid 56.38 trillion rials (almost $94 million) in wedding and childbearing loans.

Some 40.84 trillion rials (about $68 million) were granted to the applicants for wedding loans, an increase of 28 percent compared to the same period last year, IRNA quoted Mehdi Sahabi, an official with the Central Bank, as saying.

The Central Bank also paid a total of 15.54 trillion rials (roughly $26 million) to families in childbearing loans, showing a 23 percent rise year on year.

Raisi calls for protecting youth

On January 28, President Ebrahim Raisi urged relevant bodies to take action to protect the youth of the country.

President Raisi told organizations that they can use their facilities and capacities to implement the law to protect the youth.

President Raisi pointed to the important role of cultural development in encouraging people to have children, saying that the wrong cultural development in recent decades has been one of the most important reasons for the decrease in the country's population growth.

To address this issue, he called on national media, print and digital media, education, and higher education centers, and advertising agencies to work together to promote positive cultural messages about family planning.

President Raisi also outlined several other measures that should be taken to protect the youth, including eliminating obstacles to infertility treatment, facilitating marriage by providing timely marriage loans, and providing employment and housing.

Population growth policies

According to the national center for monitoring population policies, from 2001 to 2015, the number of births has been increasing in the country, but after 2015, the number of births started to decrease with an almost steep slope.

In 2020, the number of births in the country (1,114,000) decreased by more than 29 percent compared to 2015 (1,570,000), a decrease of more than 450,000 births, which was unprecedented in the last few decades.

The number of births in the year 2021 (1,116,000) also shows an increase of about 2,000 compared to the year 2020.

Also, the rate of births from about 20 per thousand population in 2015 has reached its lowest level in the last 50 years with a significant decrease to 13.24 per thousand population in 2021.

The population growth rate reached 0.73 percent in 2020 and 0.68 percent in 2021 despite an increase of 2,000 births compared to 2020.

In Iran, about 10.5 percent of the population was over 60 years old in 2020. In 2050, the population over 60 years is forecast to increase to 33 percent.

In 2030, the population over 65 years is forecast to increase to about 10 percent.

Infertility treatment

In November 2023, an official with the Ministry of Health said that the total fertility rate should reach 2.5 from 1.66 before the closure of the demographic window in the next five years.

Over the last 30 years, the total fertility rate of the country has declined, but in the Iranian calendar year 1401 (March 2022–March 2023), the downward trend in fertility came to a halt, he added.

MT/MG