Background and Aim: Fertility has dramatically declined in the past three decades in Iran with a fertility rate of below replacement level. So in recent years, policymakers have paid attention to new policies to achieve population growth. In the meantime differences in fertility levels are also emphasized between Shiite and Sunni religious groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of religion and development on women's fertility behavior in the selected towns from three Kurdish provinces.

Material and Methods: The method of this study was a secondary analysis and analysis method was also a two-level analysis. Data were extracted from the census in 1390. Our study included 9457 married women between 49 and 15 years of age, from the selected towns of Kermanshah, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan provinces.

Findings: The results showed that the difference in fertility level is very low between the two religious groups and religion did not show a significant effect on the fertility of women. In contrast, levels of development of the towns had strong and significant effect on women's fertility rate.

Conclusions: We concluded that the issue of the religious imbalance was not related to fertility rate in Iran.

Keywords: Fertility, Religion, level of development, Kurdish women, Iran.

Received: Apr 13, 2015      Accepted: Jul 28, 2015