Former Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel has called for the establishment of a ministry dedicated to promoting population growth as Iranian families witness reduced birth rates and the exodus out of Iran continues.
Haddad Adel, closely associated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, pointed to global trends where countries have set up similar ministries to preemptively tackle potential demographic crisis.
"Focusing on the youth of our population is crucial. We must address this before it's too late," he stated.
He cited South Korea as an example, saying despite its economic progress, it is facing severe population growth challenges and has consequently decided to create a ministry to address population growth issues.
Haddad Adel also commented on socio-economic disparities affecting birth rates, stating that "those who are poorer have more children, while the wealthier have fewer, largely due to lower marriage rates and fertility."
His call comes in response to Iran’s troubling demographic trends. Despite government expenditure, with at least 250 trillion rials ($500m) a year allocated to enhance birth rates, the population growth has continued to decline.
Iran's population growth rate has plummeted to 0.6 percent from 1.23 percent two years ago, a sharp decline from the 4.21 percent recorded in 1984, just five years after the Islamic Revolution. With Iran’s population having doubled from 40 million in the early 1980s to 84 million now, Supreme Leader Khamenei has underscored the necessity of increasing Iran's population to at least 150 million by 2050 to avoid an aged demographic profile.
In line with Khamenei's directives, the Iranian parliament passed the Supporting Family and Regenerating Population Act in March 2021, which includes measures to encourage marriage and childbearing, alongside penalties for promoting birth control. The law also saw the prohibition of government health services from providing family planning services and scrapped routine prenatal screening for genetic diseases or disabilities, though without a total ban.
An exodus of professionals, including the health sector, is also deepening the population crisis amid Iran's economic disaster. According to a recent article in the Tehran newspaper Arman Melli, during the past year about 30,000 personnel of different medical professions, including doctors, nurses, and paramedical technicians, have applied for Certificates of Good Standing with intent to immigrate to Oman. Many more have gone abroad to the likes of the UAE and Canada.
