Religion and Fertility:A Comparative Study of Rural Kurdish WomensFertility Behavior ill Ravansar and Gilangharb

The purpose of this study is to investigate fertility differences, among thepeople of villages of Ravansarand Gilangharb whose religions are Sunnite andShiite respectively. The study aims at answering the question as whetherreligion as a cultural variable can cause fertility differences in an ethnic groupwith two different religions. In the survey 550 married women aged 15-49 wereselected as the sample (including 220 Sunnites and 330 Shiites). The theoreticalframework of the study is religion and fertility theory embracing characteristics,particularized theology and minority group status hypotheses. The study utilizesa combination of characteristics and minority group status hypotheses. Thefindings of the study show that women religions do not have a significantcorrelation with fertility behavior. It was found that often hypotheses related toSunni women, except abortion experience, other variables have a significantcorrelation with fertility behavior. The relationships between all variables aresignificant in Shiite women. Also, the results of the study show that the mostimportant factors influencing fertility behavior are marriage duration,experiencing child loosing, age of first fertility and husbandʹs education. Thesevariables explained %74 of fertility behavior variance. Unexpectedly, thereligion was not the main factor leading to fertility differences