Iranian Journal of Sociology

Abstract Iran has implemented various population control policies during the past decades, and policies have had deep impacts on family as the smallest unit of society especially on women. This paper examines the Islamic Republic’s population policies and their impacts on unintended pregnancies. We employed grounded theory and carried out semi-structured interviews with 23 three participants who had experienced unintended pregnancies. To select the participants, we did purposeful and access sampling methods; this process stopped when we reached the saturation point. Generally speaking, 452 concepts, 47 sub-categories, and 15 main categories were extracted from the data. Then, the “dissatisfaction with government’s interference” and “imposed pregnancy” In addition, the mediating factors were poverty and expensiveness. The participants’ strategies were as follows: asking for supporting packages and suppressing demands which in turn put more pressure on low income families and create dissatisfaction.