The research team, led by Zahra Ebrahimi Rigi of Iranshahr University of Medical Sciences with colleagues including Mahlagha Dehghan of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, set out to fill a conspicuous gap. Population scientists have documented Iran’s fertility transition in detail, showing how the country moved from high fertility in the 1980s to sustained below-replacement levels within roughly a generation, but few studies have asked married students directly what childbearing looks like from the inside. That matters because university students sit at the exact intersection of the problem: they are adults of reproductive age, they are the future educated workforce, and they are the people whose delayed family formation drives the demographic statistics that policymakers worry about.

Methodologically, the study is a textbook example of interpretive qualitative research. The team used conventional qualitative content analysis in the tradition described by Graneheim and Lundman, an approach suited to situations where little prior qualitative work exists and the research question is exploratory. Between September 2023 and June 2024, they conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews lasting 45 to 90 minutes with 14 married students recruited through purposive sampling with maximum variation, meaning participants were deliberately chosen to span a wide range of ages, genders, disciplines, income levels, and living situations. Interviews continued until data saturation was reached at the twelfth interview, the point at which no new codes or conceptual meanings emerged. Two additional interviews were then conducted purely to confirm that the themes were stable, and none appeared. Transcripts were coded independently by two researchers using MAXQDA 2020 software, with disagreements resolved through discussion, and the analysis ultimately distilled 200 initial codes into 17 subcategories, five major categories, and one overarching theme.

The first of those categories was medical. Several participants described hormonal disorders such as polycystic ovary syndrome, a common endocrine condition that can impair ovulation and fertility, and chronic diseases such as hypothyroidism, which research has shown can alter ovarian morphology and disrupt menstrual cycles in ways that mimic polycystic ovary syndrome. One participant with PCOS reported that specialists had advised her against using contraception and recommended having children promptly, yet her husband preferred to wait, a tension that left her anxious about her reproductive window. Others worried about how their medications might affect a pregnancy, or whether a condition could be passed to a future child. The study situates these accounts within a broader evidence base: infertility affects couples through sperm dysfunction in roughly 30 percent of cases, ovulation failure in about 25 percent, and fallopian tube damage in around 20 percent, and a systematic review has found that university students generally show only low to moderate awareness of fertility factors and of age-related fertility decline, with non-medical students knowing least.

The psychological category was, if anything, more pervasive. Students described fear, stress, and a lack of peace of mind, saying they did not feel ready to become parents while under academic pressure. One participant put it plainly: it is best to have a child when you are calm, and he was not considering one while still studying. Others worried about transmitting their own stress to their children, or reported painful disagreements with spouses about the timing and number of children. The researchers frame this through behavioral theory, noting that frameworks such as the Theory of Planned Behavior distinguish between wanting children and intending to have them, which helps explain why students can desire a family yet postpone it indefinitely when perceived constraints loom large. Prior intervention research suggests that providing accurate fertility information can reduce fear and uncertainty, and that campus counseling may support more emotionally informed reproductive decisions.

Sociocultural barriers formed the third category, and they were strikingly concrete. Participants described watching friends struggle to breastfeed and care for newborns during their studies, a vicarious experience that made them apprehensive about repeating it. Some said relatives were unwilling to help with childcare and they did not want to burden others. One woman calculated that because she was both employed and a student, all child-rearing duties would fall on her, and she did not want children for at least six years. Others pointed to parenting knowledge acquired haphazardly from friends and social media rather than from any structured source, and even to customs as specific as the expectation that a mother-in-law must purchase the baby’s clothes. The study links these accounts to wider findings that reproductive autonomy is the strongest predictor of fertility plans for childless women, and that access to childcare and fair domestic arrangements bolsters women’s willingness to have children far more than it affects men’s.

Financial barriers came fourth, and they were framed not as individual failings but as structural conditions. Participants emphasized that financial stability, home ownership, and a reliable income were prerequisites for parenthood. One unemployed participant said bluntly that people who cannot support children should not have them. The researchers interpret this through a rational-choice lens: individuals weigh the costs and benefits of childbearing, and when housing, childcare, and education costs are high while job security is low, the perceived costs of parenthood simply outweigh the benefits. This is consistent with a large empirical literature showing that economic constraints, work characteristics, and financial strain shape fertility expectations and delay childbearing. The implication, the authors argue, is that cash incentives alone cannot counteract the deeper economic architecture that makes parenthood feel unaffordable to young, educated couples.

The fifth category combined recreational, occupational, and temporal pressures. Students described chronic tiredness, the loss of leisure time, and doubts about whether they could adequately care for a child while juggling coursework and jobs. One recounted a friend who had tried to balance being a student and a mother, collapsed into exhaustion without support, had to take a leave of absence, and fell a year behind in her studies, an outcome that frightened observers into postponing their own family plans. Others noted that even travel becomes difficult with children, a small-sounding loss that accumulates into a larger sense that parenthood forecloses the last flexible years of youth. The researchers invoke work-family conflict theory here: when the demands of paid employment and study are incompatible with childcare responsibilities, and when people perceive little control over their schedules, exhaustion and time scarcity push fertility intentions further into the future.

The study’s limitations are acknowledged candidly. Fourteen participants is a small sample, though appropriate for qualitative work whose goal is depth rather than statistical generalization. The geographic concentration in Kerman restricts cross-cultural applicability, self-reported data on sensitive topics such as finances and marital stress may be shaped by social desirability bias, the first participant’s prior familiarity with the researchers may have introduced bias, and only married students were included, leaving out unmarried and cohabiting partners. There was no longitudinal follow-up, so the study cannot show how these challenges evolve over time. Still, the strengths are real: maximum-variation sampling, saturation testing, member checking, an audit trail, and thick description all bolster confidence that the findings faithfully represent the participants’ lived experience.

The practical conclusion is the study’s most policy-relevant contribution. The authors argue that Iran’s pronatalist strategy needs to move beyond financial incentives toward what they call a student-parent-friendly university model: flexible academic regulations such as hybrid learning and extended deadlines, tailored academic advising, counseling units for marital and childbearing concerns, peer support programs, evidence-based parenting and reproductive health education woven into curricula, and on-campus childcare. They also call for awareness campaigns that normalize student parenthood and challenge the gender norms that pile caregiving onto mothers. The deeper message is demographic as much as educational. If a couple wants a child but postpones one because of a rigid exam schedule, an unsupportive landlord, a disapproving mother-in-law, and an untreated thyroid condition, no lump-sum payment will close that gap. The tempest, as these students describe it, is made of many winds, and calming it requires institutions, not just incentives, to change.

Subject of Research: Childbearing barriers among married university students in Iran

Article Title: Qualitative study of childbearing challenges among married Iranian university students

Article References: Ebrahimi Rigi, Z., Behzadi Fard, S., Ghonchehpour, A., & Dehghan, M. (2026). Qualitative study of childbearing challenges among married Iranian university students. Discover Social Science and Health, 6(1), Article 102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44155-026-00437-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44155-026-00437-z

Keywords: Iran, fertility decline, university students, childbearing, qualitative research, pronatalist policy, reproductive health, work-family conflict, PCOS, childcare, gender norms, higher education