The effect of the government’s family planning policies on women’s fertility rate in Iran
In the mid-1980s the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Iran began to plummet, and in less than 20 years the country experienced a striking 69 percent decrease in fertility. Since this decrease in the TFR coincided with the restoration of the national anti-natal family planning policy, some existing studies credit this policy for the decline in the TFR. However, the TFR may also have been affected by other notable changes in women’s socioeconomic characteristics, including their age, education, personal income, and family income. In this paper, I use repeated cross-sectional microdata from Iran’s Households Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) over the years 1984- 2014 to estimate the impact of the government’s family planning policies on fertility among women aged 17-35, focusing mainly on a general anti-natal policy instituted in 1989 and a reform of the welfare system in 1993. Results indicate that together these policies decreased annual birth rates by 15 percent, with even larger effects in rural areas. Since Iranian law forbids births out of wedlock, I also investigate the policies’ effects on the marriage rate and the marital fertility rate. I find that the policies mainly operated through the former channel – especially in rural areas, where the government’s family planning policies account for only 3 percent of the decrease in the marital fertility rate. While the 1989 family planning policy drove the decrease in the marital fertility rate in urban areas, increases in education played a larger role in rural areas.
How local access to 2-year colleges affect adolescent pregnancy in the United Sates
Adolescent pregnancy and its consequences represent a major public health concern in many countries of the world. Teen mothers, especially those who are younger than 17, have a higher maternal mortality rate because their bodies are not yet mature enough to bear children (Yinger et al.,1992). High adolescent fertility rates are also linked to low educational attainment and poverty. Too-early childbirth presumably limits the teen mother's ability to finish her education. A girl with little or no education has fewer skills and opportunities to find a job. Generally, adolescent pregnancy is followed by phycological, social, health, and economic problems.
Among developed countries, the United States has always had one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates especially in the early 1990s. Although a high level of immigration and the variety of racial and ethnic composition in the United States could push adolescent pregnancy up, studies show that rates for white teenagers were among the highest when compared with those of other developed countries (Singh and Darroch,2000). However, there has been a remarkable decrease in the teenage pregnancy rate in the United State over the last decade from 41 in 2005 to 21 in 2015.
In this paper, I want to investigate the effective factors on the United States adolescent pregnancy rate over the last decade and to see if access to local 2-year colleges has affected this rate. It could possible to find either a positive effect of local colleges on teen’s fertility rate or a negative one. It might be negative because a more accessible and more affordable educational system increases girls’ opportunity cost of having a child. It also could be positive, because girls do not need to emigrate to start an education. So, they can save more money which makes having a child more affordable. Generally, some studies found a negative relationship between early parenthood and girls’ educational attainment (e.g., Moore & Waite, 1977)). While, recent studies find that this gap is narrowing, due in part to increasing general equivalency degree (GED) programs, schooling requirements for welfare receipt, and more progressive school policies on accepting pregnant students (Coley and Chase-Lansdale). I use a Difference-in-Difference model to estimate the effect of local colleges on teen’s fertility.