Iran’s Marriage Crisis: Record-High Divorce Rates Despite Massive State Investments in Population Growth
Iran’s divorce rates reached unprecedented levels in 2023, with one divorce now recorded for every 2.4 marriages — the highest ratio in Iran’s history, according to recent data from the Iranian Civil Registration Organization.
Marriages, in contrast, dropped to a 27-year low, with only 481,000 recorded in the past year.
Key numbers:
202,000 divorces recorded, marking the third-highest annual total since records began.
Divorce-to-marriage ratios in the 1980s stood at only 9 per 100 marriages, meaning only one in eleven marriages ended in divorce. That rate has now climbed to approximately 40 divorces per 100 marriages in the 2020s.
Province Breakdown:
Alborz Province saw the highest divorce rate, with 61 divorces per 100 marriages. Other provinces with significant ratios include:
Mazandaran: 58 divorces per 100 marriages.
Tehran: 53 per 100.
Gilan, Semnan, and Markazi: 52, 51, and 50 per 100, respectively.
In contrast, Sistan and Baluchestan recorded the lowest divorce rate at just 10 divorces per 100 marriages, followed by South Khorasan and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari with 27 and 30 per 100, respectively.
Why This Matters
The new data shows that the Islamic Republic’s massive investment in promoting marriage and population growth has so far failed. The government allocated approximately 10,899 billion tomans (around $260 million USD) in 2023 alone to encourage population growth—a budget vastly surpassing funding for essential ministries:
Nearly seven times the Ministry of Science’s budget,
Four times that of the Ministry of Labor, Welfare, and Social Affairs, and
About double the Ministry of Agriculture’s annual budget.
Despite these investments, divorce rates continue to climb, with the ratio of divorces to marriages at an all-time high and marriage rates at a 27-year low. These trends suggest that government campaigns have been ineffective in reversing demographic shifts, challenging the government’s ambitious population goals.