Are the 18 Million Unmarried Young People Statistics Exaggerated?

Eighteen million Iranians have never married. The figure was recently cited by Bahman Abdi, Director General of the Youth Planning and Social Participation Office at the Ministry of Sport and Youth, and has once again drawn attention to the issue of marriage and celibacy in the country.

According to Ambassador Arjan, Quds newspaper wrote: According to Abdi, 10 million of these people are men and 8 million are women. However, the noteworthy point in this statistic is the age range of the people under investigation; Because girls over 13 years old and boys over 15 years old are included in this calculation. This statistic was raised in the situation that the official data also indicate the change in the marriage process in the country. According to the report of Population Monitoring Center of Civil Registration Organization, there are more than 7 million and 355 thousand unmarried men in the age group of 20 to 54 years and about 6 million and 930 thousand unmarried women in the age group of 15 to 49 years in the country; Figures that show the necessity of a more detailed examination of the marriage situation and demographic changes.

Earlier, Marzieh Vahiddastjardi, the secretary of the National Population Headquarters, warned about the increase in the age of marriage and announced that the number of marriages registered in the country increased from 891,000 cases in 2009 to 431,000 cases in 1404. He also considered the increase in the age of marriage as an effective factor in delaying childbearing and reducing the fertility opportunities of families, and emphasized the need to remove economic obstacles, especially housing problems and marriage facilities.

However, not all experts have the same view of these statistics. Shahla Kazmipour, a demographer, had previously emphasized in an interview that the situation of marriage, divorce and even absolute celibacy in Iran should not necessarily be considered a crisis. He believes that economic and social uncertainty, inflation, and the difficulty of planning for the future are among the factors that influence young people's decision to get married, and it cannot be expected that obstacles to family formation will be removed simply by paying a loan.

In order to examine the various dimensions of this statistic, the reasons for the change in the marriage pattern among young people and the effect of increasing the age of marriage on the country's demographic future, we talked to Saleh Ghasemi, a population researcher.

It was recently announced that 18 million people in the country are not married yet. What does this statistic mean from a demographic point of view? Should it be considered alarming?

The statistics published in recent days, quoted by one of the deputy ministers of the Ministry of Sports and Youth, are not accurate statistics. Unfortunately, some people are trying to create news and statistics with a pessimistic and pessimistic approach; Because such news is usually attractive to the media, it creates popular headlines and receives wide coverage. It may even be that one of the goals of publishing such statistics is to raise more people who publish them in the media. The issue of the existence of 18 million single youths in the country is incorrect; Because in the calculation of such statistics, a very wide age range is usually considered, and then without paying attention to the details, they claim that 18 million people are single in the country. While republishing this statistic, many media and audiences take it to mean the existence of 18 million single youths in the country; If these two issues are different from each other.

In this statistic, single people over 15 years old are considered, while it should be noted that single people are placed in different groups. For example, people who have never married, those who have become single after the death of their spouse, and people who are in a state of celibacy due to divorce, each of them is considered a different group and they cannot all be put in the same category.

On the other hand, 15 years old is not the right age to judge people's marriage status; Because currently, the conventional age of marriage starts from around 21 or 22 years old and continues until around 35 or 36 years old. Therefore, when we consider the age of 15 as the starting point in calculating the statistics of singles and on the other hand we do not set any specific age limit, naturally a significant population will be added to this statistic and we will end up with a very large number.

Presenting such statistics without separating different groups and taking into account the conventional age of marriage, can create a false image of the state of marriage in the country and become the basis for stigmatization in the society. Therefore, such news and statistics are not necessarily accurate and reliable.

Do you think that Iranian society is moving in the direction where being single becomes a stable pattern of life?

No, I do not agree with this view. From time to time, the Iranian society is affected by new patterns that are promoted mostly through the media and some famous figures and celebrities in the fields of lifestyle, art, cinema and politics. These patterns may be welcomed at times and spread in some parts of the society, especially among some groups belonging to the upper economic classes and privileged classes, but after a while, their prevalence and influence will decrease.

The phenomenon of voluntary celibacy should also be examined in the same framework, and it is not possible to conclude that celibacy has become a universal and stable choice in Iranian society by simply observing its prevalence in some social groups.

According to the culture that governs the Iranian society and the available statistics, it cannot be accepted that voluntary celibacy and the conscious decision of young people not to marry has become a stable pattern in the Iranian lifestyle. Therefore, such a perception is not consistent with the current cultural and demographic realities of the country.