An assessment on the impact of women's autonomy, education and social participation on childbearing intention in Sirjan City

Like many developed and developing societies, Iran has experienced sharp fertility decline and reached below- replacement level fertility. As women have a major role in childbearing, their empowerment and autonomy will lead to changes in their fertility behavior, and many studies have focused on various aspects of women's autonomy and fertility. This paper examines the relationship between women's autonomy and fertility behavior in the Sirjan city. The data is drawn from the 2011 survey that collected information from around 400 women of reproductive ages (15-49) in the Sirjan city in southeastern part of Iran. The results showed that the relationship between women's autonomy and fertility is insignificant when other social and economic indicators (i.e. social participation, education and employment) are controlled. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that among all different variables, social participation of women and their education level are the strong determinants of dependent variable; as childbearing intention reduces with the rise in these two variables. Women's age and children ever born are the other two important variables affecting childbearing intentions. Given the results of this study, population policies in Iran in order to facilitate childbearing for couples should provide opportunities in which women could be able to continue their education, have their social participation as well as promoting childbearing.