Investment in educating girls in developing countries is said to have the highest rate of return. In the last two decades, Iran has achieved considerable increase in the education of the country's most disadvantaged group, rural girls. During the same time, rural fertility dropped at an unprecedented rate. I study the role of the celebrated post-revolution rural family planning program in this impressive social transformation. Using impact evaluation techniques and information on the timing of construction of rural health clinics, I measure how their presence in a village affected village-level fertility and in female literacy. The results show that villages that received a health clinic during 1986-1996 experienced about a faster drop in fertility and a faster increase in adult female literacy compared to villages that received it after 1996. The evidence thus suggests that the government’s family planning program had a positive impact on rural social transformation, but it accounts for less than 20% of the changes in fertility and literacy. The study identifies potential other factors that may have brought about these changes.

Djavad Salehi-Isfahani holds a BSc from University of London (1971) and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University (1977). He is currently Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Research Associate of the Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School. His research has been in demographic economics, energy economics, and the economics of the Middle East. He has co-authored one book and edited two, and his articles have appeared in Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Health Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Economic Inequality, International Journal of Middle East Studies, and Iranian Studies, among others.

Dr Homa Katouzian, Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College 
Please note that sandwiches will be provided at this seminar