Attitudes of Iranian Women Toward Population Growth: A Questionnaire-Based Study

Increasing population has remained a concern for human societies and is thus frequently discussed by experts and politicians (1). In the past three decades, Iran's government policy has promoted a decrease in its population (2). To this end, the country's parliament passed a bill on population control in 1989 and, thereafter, the ministry of health and medical education launched healthcare centers to provide contraceptive devices and encouraged family planning. As a result, the rate of population growth decreased from 4.1% in 1983 to 1.3% in 2013 (3). This trend however sparked serious concerns among policymakers about the possible outcomes (4), and led to a strategic conclusion that rolling out a policy promoting an increase in population growth should be considered (2). Now, after a long period of encouraging families to reduce childbearing, the government is investing serious efforts to change the people's attitudes and to promote childbearing. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the attitudes of a sample of Iranian women toward population increase. In autumn 2014, 100 Iranian women were conveniently recruited among the women referred to Shahid-Be-heshti, Golabchi, and Naqavi urban healthcare centers in Kashan, Iran. A researcher-made questionnaire was administered to the participating women. The questionnaire was designed through literature review; its content validity was confirmed by 10 faculty members of the Kashan University of Medical Sciences, its reliability was assessed through internal consistency method, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.92. Besides de-mographics, the questionnaire consisted of 41 items. One item enquired about the women's desire to child-bearing and 40 items queried their opinions regarding the benefits and disadvantages of population growth in the following five domains: social, economic, cultural , emotional, and healthcare consequences. Each domain included eight items. All items were assessed on a three-point Likert scale (agree, disagree, and have no idea). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the study data. Among the study subjects, 32% were 21 to 25 years old and only 13% were below 20 years; 40% had received academic education; 40% had no child and 27% had two children. For only 10% of the women, their family income was sufficient to meet their needs. In the healthcare domain , 76% of women believed that children and women will be more vulnerable to health risks if population increases. In the emotional domain, 64% of women disagreed with the item " a decrease in population size will increase the family …