Iranian Introduces Family Criteria In Faculty Recruitment

Being married will give Iranian academics an advantage in securing a teaching position, in line with the clerical government’s ideology, an Iranian official disclosed.

On Saturday, Mohammad-Ali Keinezhad, the head of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution's recruitment department outlined a scoring system where “having one child is worth 5 points, two children accumulate 11 points, and being married adds 5 points.”

The revelation follows an October announcement by an Iranian member of parliament regarding plans to allocate thousands of hectares of land to families for building houses, as an incentive for childbirth. As part of a broader population growth initiative, 200,000 domestically produced cars were distributed to “eligible individuals,” prompting questions about the fairness of distribution.

Iran is grappling with a demographic shift from a youthful to an aging population, presenting challenges for the nation. The decline in childbirth rates in recent decades has worried the ruling regime. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called for efforts to increase the population from 85 million to as high as 150 million. In response, the parliament passed a law encouraging marriage and childbirth while prohibiting family planning options in public health services.

Critics argue that the population policy falls short of addressing economic hardships, with nearly 50% of the population living below the poverty line. Despite holding multiple jobs, many Iranians face ongoing challenges, raising concerns about the broader impact of the initiatives on the country's socio-economic landscape.