Recent comments by Iranian officials are a clear indication that there is a sense of absolute confusion among politicians with regard to population policies.

Previous policies in this field represent a roller coaster over the past three decades. Initially, after 1979, birth control policies were discontinued as they were seen as a Western tool to keep the populations of developing countries like Iran low. In the late 1980s, when the country was faced with one of the fastest population growth rates in the world, the government introduced birth control policies to contain the uncontrolled growth. In fact, the country succeeded in reducing the population growth from its peak of more than 3% in the 1980s, to some 1.5% by the late 1990s.

As a result, by the early 2000s, the country faced a challenging and young demography, with more than 50% of Iranians being under the age of 18. The socioeconomic consequences of the demographic profile and the need for job creation were among the key challenges. Nonetheless, by the mid 2000s, government officials began to worry about the projection of the country’s population into the next decades due to lower than expected fertility rates, as well as socioeconomic tendencies among young women who preferred to study and develop a career as opposed to establishing families.

The emerging crisis compelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to legally commit to paying families for every new child. Ahmadinejad even eliminated the “population control” budget of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Consequently, all efforts by the ministry to increase family health and educate parents about birth control were forcibly discontinued.