SALON

Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010 7:41 PM UTC

Iran to pay for new babies to boost population

The government will deposit money into each newborn's bank account until age 18

By

Topics: Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy on Tuesday to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran’s decades of family planning as ungodly and a Western import.

The new government initiative will pay families for every new child and deposit money into the newborn’s bank account until they reach 18, effectively rolling back years of efforts to boost the economy by reducing the country’s runaway population growth.

“Those who raise idea of family planning, they are thinking in the realm of the secular world,” Ahmadinejad said during the inauguration ceremony.

The plan is part of Ahmadinejad’s stated commitment to further increase Iran’s population, which is already estimated at 75 million. He has previously said the country could feed up to 150 million.

The program would be especially attractive to the lower income segments of the population who supported Ahmadinejad in the 2005 and 2009 elections.

Throughout his tenure, the president has promoted populist policies in Iran, where 10 million people are estimated to live under the poverty line.

It is unclear, however, where the funds would come from as the government is already having trouble paying for basic infrastructure projects.

Starting in the early 1970s, Iran waged a successful family planning campaign across the country, including banners in public health care centers reading “two children are enough.”

It was reversed after the 1979 Islamic revolution only to be brought back 10 years later when the population ballooned and the economy faltered.

Throughout the 1990s, Iran tried to reduce population growth by encouraging men and women to use free or inexpensive contraceptives, as well as vasectomies. The government brought down the country’s population growth rate from its 1986 height of 3.9 percent to just 1.6 percent in 2006.

Ahmadinejad caused public outcry, however, when shortly after he was elected in 2005 he said two children per family were not enough and urged Iranians to have more.

Under the new plan each child born in the current Iranian year, which began March 21, will receive a deposit of $950 in a government bank account. They will then continue to receive another $95 every year until they reach 18. Parents will also be expected to pay matching funds into the accounts.

Under the initiative’s rules children can withdraw the money at the age of 20 and use it for education, marriage, health and housing.

Iran’s official unemployment rate is about 10 percent, but estimates say there are 3 million unemployed people of working age in the country.

Following the earlier baby boom, some 26 million Iranians are between the ages of 15 and 30.

More Nasser Karimi.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 1 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations