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The own-children method is one of the indirect techniques of fertility estimation that can be used to estimate fertility measures for the years previous to the census. This method has been widely used in different countries and has produced reliabld results. Using the
own-children method for the first time in Iran, this study has estimated age-specific fertility rates and total fertility rates for single years during 1972 and 1996. In this paper, first, the application of the method to the
Iranian censuses is explained. Then, possible errors for using the data necessary for this method in census files are discussed. Finally, using the own-children data from the 1986 and 1996 censuses, fertility trends and levels for the years 1972 to 1996 are assessed and analyzed. The results of this study suggest that the own-children method is a reliable and
useful method for estimating fertility measures in Iran.