Determinants of household size in Iran

Fatemeh Torabi, University of Tehran
Mohammad Haddadi, University of Tehran

Despite a substantial decline in household size (i.e. from 5.1 in 1976 to 3.5 in 2011), no study, to date, has investigated the determinants of household size in Iran. The existing literature suggests that the social and economic context influences household size through demographic determinants such as nuptiality, fertility, adoption, mortality, migration (the movement in and out of the household), and divorce. This paper applies multiple regression and path analyses to the district-level data from the latest Iranian census in 2011 to determine the proximate and socioeconomic determinants of household size. The results of multiple regression analysis indicate that household size is positively associated with the level of fertility, the mean age at marriage, and negatively with men’s widowhood. These variables account for 69 per cent of the variation in household size among Iranian districts. The results of path analysis show that how and to what extent modernization influences household size.