Family Life and Developmental Idealism in Yazd, Iran

This paper is motivated by the theory that developmental idealism has been disseminated globally and has become an important international force for family and demographic change. Developmental idealism is a set of cultural beliefs and values about development and how development relates to family and demographic behavior. It holds that modern societies are causal forces producing modern families, that modern families help to produce modern societies, and that family change in the direction of modernity is to be expected. With a focus on Iran, we examine the extent to which developmental idealism has become part of a world culture that is being disseminated globally to ordinary people. Using data collected in 2007 from a sample of women in Yazd, a city in Iran, we find considerable support for the expectation that many elements of developmental idealism have been widely disseminated. Statistically significant majorities of respondents associate development with particular family attributes, believe that development causes change in family life, believe that fertility reductions and age-at-marriage increases help foster development, and perceive Iran as a dynamic country with family trends headed toward modernity. Multivariate analyses also demonstrate that such factors as parental education, respondent education, and income affect adherence to developmental idealism in predicted ways.