Abstract
In spring/summer of 2022, amid backbreaking crises and sanctions, the Islamic Republic pushed a ‘population rejuvenation policy’ with a ‘double-urgent’ legislative priority through Parliament, the Guardian Council, and readied it for quick implementation, despite extensive public opposition to its debatable mechanisms. This article argues that the Islamic Republic is less concerned with the future graying of Iran’s population, and more worried about rebuilding its eroding political base. It has realized that its supporters have become outnumbered by secular-minded Iranians. Under the bland term of “population rejuvenation”, the regime is putting in place incentives that are more acceptable to its conservative and compliant followers and rejected by more progressive citizens. The mechanisms include inter alia such disputed institutions as child marriage, temporary unions, or legal polygamy, and are promoted through generous financial incentives. By contrast, family planning services are considerably reduced and are at high cost to poorer women. In this manner, the regime hopes to bring about a differential fertility rate between its dependents and its detractors, which will over time increase the share of the former over the latter group, and keep political representation in its favor. This ideological approach is not new. In fact, the methods of the Islamic Republic are akin to the “great replacement theory”– a term used by white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and rightwing Western groups to represent the view that their demographic share is dwindling relative to their more secular opponents. In the West, too, under euphemistic slogans such as “family values “or “saving the unborn,” these groups have pushed for decades pro-natalist policies that target women’s reproductive rights and limit access to contraception and abortion – essentially limiting women’s choices to plan their lives. Behind the crowning moment of the Dobbs case – the overturning of the right to abortion in Roe v Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court – lies the belief that reproductive rights have facilitated “white replacement”. And, by taking away these rights, white women will have more children and thus increase the white population’s share vis-à-vis non-whites, particularly since the latter has gained consistently more political power and representation.
