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  • 6/30/2025

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00:00Iran's birth rate collapse is historic.
00:04What is the fastest a country has ever changed its mind about making babies?
00:09This is a story about a society fundamentally re-engineering its future.
00:14Iran holds the record for the fastest, most dramatic birth rate collapse.
00:19This isn't just a statistic.
00:22This is a story of how a nation of 92 million people slammed the brakes on its population growth so hard and so fast,
00:28it shattered all precedents.
00:30A decline in fertility that took some European countries 300 years to achieve,
00:36Iran accomplished it in a single generation.
00:39This is a story of the world record that no one intended to set.
00:45So our story begins in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution.
00:49The new supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, had a grand vision.
00:53Facing a brutal war with Iraq and calling for the export of his revolution across the Middle East,
01:00he needed a human wave.
01:02The Ayatollah declared the family planning policies of the previous government a Western plot
01:09and put massive pressure on Iranians to breed more,
01:13to build a 20 million man army to defend the nation and confront its enemies.
01:20The message from the state was clear.
01:22Having more children was a sacred patriotic duty.
01:27So in 1982, Iran lowered the marriage age for girls,
01:31which was 18 years old in 1975,
01:34to nine lunar years old,
01:36which is about eight years and nine months using Western solar calendars.
01:41So you basically have a subset of the population that was very much forced to create this new Iranian army,
01:50while the government and religious leaders applied pressure throughout the population
01:55to build up their 20 million man army.
01:58The government dismantled family planning clinics
02:01and celebrated large families as the national ideal.
02:05The results were immediate and explosive.
02:08By the 1980s, the total fertility rate was over 6.6.
02:13At its peak in 1985, Iran's population wasn't just growing,
02:17it was exploding,
02:18hitting an annual population growth of 4.5% in a single year,
02:22one of the highest the world has ever seen.
02:26By the late 1980s, the Iran-Iraq war was over,
02:29but the consequences of the baby boom were just beginning.
02:32The government looked at the numbers and saw not a powerful army,
02:35but an impending economic disaster.
02:39An enormous youth bulge was about to hit a job market that could not absorb it.
02:44So in a complete 180,
02:46the exact same establishment that had championed the baby boom
02:50decided to execute one of history's most abrupt policy reversals.
02:55And what followed was a demographic event without precedent.
02:59The birth rates didn't just decline,
03:01it went into absolute freefall.
03:03To put it in perspective,
03:05it took the UK 95 years for their fertility rates
03:09to drop from over six children to below three.
03:12Iran did it in just nine years.
03:15This was faster than China's infamous one-child policy.
03:19Between 1980 and 2000,
03:22Iran achieved a 70% decline in its total fertility rate.
03:26from over 6.6 children per woman in 1980
03:30to just 2.0 in 2000,
03:33a speed that is completely unprecedented over a 20-year span.
03:38And the state went on an all-out blitz.
03:41It established a network of thousands of health clinics
03:44offering free contraception.
03:46It created mandatory premarital counseling
03:49where family planning was a central topic.
03:52And it enlisted the clerics to issue religious rulings
03:56endorsing vasectomies and tube-tying.
03:59Contraceptive use soared to about 74% among married women,
04:04a rate comparable to most of the developed world.
04:07This was turbocharged by a revolution in female education.
04:11Female literacy rates were under 30% before the revolution,
04:15and they shot up past 85%,
04:17creating a generation of empowered women
04:19who chose to have smaller families.
04:23And the fertility rates in rural areas,
04:25once a staggering 8.1 births per woman,
04:29collapsed to just 2.1 in a single generation.
04:33By the 2010s,
04:34the sheer terrifying success of the program
04:36sparked a new panic, though.
04:38The leaders looked at the data
04:39from the record-breaking success
04:41and saw a future of empty schools
04:43and overflowing retirement homes.
04:45The median age in Iran in 1985 was just 17 years old
04:50and is now around 34 years old today,
04:53and it is on track to hit 43 by 2050,
04:56making Iran one of the fastest aging societies in the world.
05:01And this creates a profound national security paradox.
05:04The regime has ambitions of being a regional superpower.
05:08It funds proxies across the Middle East
05:10and engages in high-stakes military confrontations,
05:14like the recent direct missile and drone exchanges with Israel.
05:19But a nation that is aging this rapidly,
05:21with a shrinking pool of young men to recruit in a war,
05:26and a smaller workforce to tax,
05:28cannot sustain such a costly foreign policy.
05:32That 20 million man army they once dreamed of
05:35is now getting old,
05:36with no replacement in sight.
05:38Projections warn that by 2050,
05:40a third of Iran's entire population
05:43could be over the age of 60.
05:45And of course, the result,
05:46the government tried to change course yet again.
05:50In 2021, it passed the Youthful Population
05:53and Protection of the Family Law,
05:55banning free contraception
05:56and outlawing vasectomies in the public system.
05:59But guess what?
06:00It is not working.
06:01The total fertility rate has continued to fall,
06:04hitting a record low of around 1.6 in 2024.
06:07In the year ending March 2025,
06:11the number of live births in Iran fell below 1 million
06:15for the first time since 1955,
06:18when the country's population
06:19was just a quarter of its current size.
06:22So why the failure?
06:24Because the government can't undo
06:26the social and economic reality it helped create.
06:29Young Iranians are facing crippling inflation,
06:33which stood at 38.7% in May 2025.
06:38And the youth unemployment rate is over 20%.
06:40The youth of Iran are not listening
06:43to the government's calls for more children.
06:46They are listening to their empty wallets.
06:48And here's the ultimate irony.
06:51The Iranian government engineered the fastest,
06:53most effective demographic revolution in modern history,
06:57and in doing so unleashed forces it can no longer control.
07:01It educated and empowered a generation of women,
07:04and now seems shocked that those women
07:07are making their own choices.
07:09And they are learning a lesson many nations
07:11have learned before.
07:13It is far, far easier to convince people
07:15to have fewer children
07:16than to convince them to have more in this modern world.
07:20They didn't just tap the brakes on population growth.
07:23They virtually guaranteed their birth rates
07:26never come back to replacement levels.
07:29And unfortunately, with a GDP of just about $4,500 per capita,
07:34they are a very long way from being a high-income nation.
07:38And seemingly, they are destined for a population
07:42that will exist in a downward spiral of perpetual poverty,
07:47with some estimates showing their poverty rate
07:49as high as 75% to 80% of the entire population.
07:53Having a low fertility rate not only limits them
07:56economically in many respects,
07:58but it makes Iran far more vulnerable militarily,
08:02where they really can't afford to lose
08:04the relatively few young people it already has.
08:08And now, as Iran stares down their strategic rivals
08:12in ongoing conflicts
08:13and grapples with a rapidly aging society,
08:17they are dealing with the consequences
08:19of setting a world record they never wanted.
08:23The future of Iran is not a youthful revolutionary army,
08:27but a nation growing old, quiet,
08:30and facing a demographic destiny of decline.
08:33And it's a perfect showing that when governments
08:36try to invasively control their populations,
08:39the end results often backfire in spectacular ways.
08:44So how do you see Iran's collapsing birth rate
08:46impacting their long-term future?
08:49Share your thoughts in the comments below.
08:50Please consider liking and subscribing.
08:52This has been Blinded by Logic.
08:53Thanks for watching.

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