Using a nationally representative sample of about 90,000 currently married women aged 10-49 years taken from urban and rural areas of all provinces of Iran, the present study compares women who had entered their current place of residence within the five-year period preceding the survey with those who had lived there for a longer period or permanently on a number of reproductive behavior indicators (e.g., contraceptive use) and outcomes (e.g., fertility). The migrant group consisted of five subgroups with respect to their place of origin: those coming from an urban center outside the province; those coming from an urban center within the province; those coming from a village outside the province; those coming from a village within the province; and those coming from abroad.

Contrary to expectation all four sub-groups of internal migrants proved to have lower fertility rates (as measured by number of pregnancies, children ever born and living children) and to have higher rates of contraceptive prevalence than their non-migrant counterparts. These differences persisted after controlling for age, duration of marriage and level of education. The small group of migrants from abroad
(N=360) were predominantly from Afghanistan and had significantly higher fertility and lower contraceptive prevalence rates than all migrant and non-migrant groups.