March 26, 2021
The Majlis has voted to boost the loans given to newlyweds by 40 percent at Now Ruz, ignoring the fears of many that the loans promote child marriages as fathers in effect sell-off their child daughters for financial gain.
The loans must be paid off over seven years, but they carry no interest charge at all.
The loan maximum has been raised four years straight and, until this year, by amounts that far exceed the rate of inflation, making them all that much more appealing.
The Majlis voted March 3 to raise the maximum size of the loan in the next Persian year to 700 million rials ($2,800) per couple.
To encourage early marriage, the loan will go to 1 billion rials ($4,000) if the bride is below 23 years old and the groom under 25. In 2015, the average age of marriage in Iran was 27.4 for men and 23.8 for women.
The idea of the marriage loans is to counter the problems that many couples say cause them to defer getting married because it is too expensive for them to set up a household. They thus continue to live with their parents in their 20s.
One goal of the loans is to boost the birth rate, which is now below the level needed to replace those dying. If continued indefinitely, the population will start to fall.
The point of the extra benefit for those marrying younger is to give them more years of marriage in their child-bearing years.
The loans are big business. The Financial Tribune reported that loans in the current Persian year through December 10 totaled 344 trillion rials ($1.4 billion).
