Demographic Challenges
Iran's birth rate has recently dropped severely, indicating change towards a more industrialized, urbanized way of life (see Demographic Transition on previous page). On the surface, this seems wonderful, less time to have to spend caring for children, more time to study sciences and arts. In fact, Iran's dependency load is 27.1%, rather low for a developing country. But this is not as good as it seems.
Think ahead 30, 40, 50 years. This booming, prosperous generation has passed over the 65 year mark, and are now part of the dependency load. Under normal circumstances, this would be fine. They would have left themselves enough children to care for the when they get older. But did they? No. The new population will be under constant strain to care for the generation that neglected to have enough children. Plus, they have to give birth to their own children to carry on their line. And here's where the problem starts. They have the option to either:
Neither options look good for the future of Iran. But what can we do?...
Think ahead 30, 40, 50 years. This booming, prosperous generation has passed over the 65 year mark, and are now part of the dependency load. Under normal circumstances, this would be fine. They would have left themselves enough children to care for the when they get older. But did they? No. The new population will be under constant strain to care for the generation that neglected to have enough children. Plus, they have to give birth to their own children to carry on their line. And here's where the problem starts. They have the option to either:
- Care for their children, and give birth to enough to continue the line, at an even birth rate. This would create a monstrous dependency load, similar to several impoverished African countries that can't industrialize because of their loads. There wouldn't be enough food, time, or money. Not the way to go.
- Care for the elderly, and have few children, just enough to pass on the line. Now the whole cycle starts all over again, with the next generation.
Neither options look good for the future of Iran. But what can we do?...