The Flourishing 1980s, the Deadly 1990s: Just How Reliable are Iran's Mortality Figures?

Mortality rates in Iran have been a preoccupation for several observers and analysts in recent months. Statistics that some expected to be a reliable basis on which to establish the impact of COVID-19 appear, in fact, not to be so.

According to official reports, by 20 March 2020, about 1,280 people in Iran had died from the coronavirus disease. Even if we assume or expect the actual number of casualties to be up to 10 times higher, it still seems insignificant compared to the average annual mortality rate of nearly 390,000. In addition, delays and errors in death registration makes it impossible to track any signs of a major or even deadly incident in these figures.

Mortality statistics have only been collected and published in Iran for about 55 years. But in the records of these 55 years we find no trace of evidence for known deadly events, such as war, major earthquakes, revolution or the mass killings of political dissidents. This predicates a high probability of error their in analysis.

These official statistics claim that more than 21 million people have died in Iran since 1965. An average of 390,000 people die each year. The actual on-the-ground recorded number of deaths is likely to be very different, and specifically higher than this. The deviation and statistical jumps in the annual mortality rate are in reality large and significant.

For example, according to the Iranian Civil Registration Organization, the 1990s were by far the deadliest decade in the history of Iran. Between 1991 and 2000, nearly 10 million death certificates were issued in the country, a massive rise on the decades that both preceded and followed. The number of deaths in the 2000s was recorded at less than 4 million and so far in the 2010s, about 3.5 million people have supposedly died. 

Annual Mortality in the Last 55 Years

What is the reason for these apparent huge fluctuations in the death rate? On the website of Iran’s Statistical Center, a note under the above chart reads: “The high number of fatalities in the years 1994 to 1997 is due to the implementation of the crash scheme for registration of death figures.”

This means that deaths that took place in previous years but were not recorded at the time have been added to the totals for these four years. It seems reasonable, but such jumps are also visible in other years too, rendering the data hopelessly skewed.

In 2014, for instance, the total number of deaths seems to be considerably higher – by about 70,000, or 20 per cent – than that of the previous and subsequent years.  There is nothing obvious in the events of 2014 that would have compelled such a surge in fatalities. Surely by the 2010s, it cannot be all down to issues in the registration process either.

Smudged Figures on Deadly Disasters, Both Natural and Political

The year 1979 is a very important one in the contemporary history of Iran. It was also singularly violent, with several military conflicts and internal upheaval reaching its apex in the country in the form of the Islamic Revolution. In addition, a deadly earthquake (Tabas) occurred in this year, killing at least 20,000 people. Decide all this the death toll in 1979 is logged as 127,000: the lowest on record since 1965.

There is also the glaring inaccuracy of deaths recorded in the 1980s. In the decade thought to be the bloodiest in the history of the Islamic Republic, only about 2 million people are supposed to have lost their lives.While there are no exact figures on Iranian casualties of the Iran-Iraq war, they are now estimated to have numbered around 1 million. Alongside the war, up to 20,000 political prisoners and dissidents were slaughtered on the regime’s orders from 1981 to 1989. There were also several natural disasters, with one earthquake in Rudbar alone killing 40,000 people. And yet both the recorded number of deaths and the mortality rate in the 1980s are astonishingly low.

What is the Population Mortality Rate?

The average mortality rate across Iran’s entire 55-year registration history is 70 people per 10,000 each year. Broken down further, the rate stood at 69 per 10,000 in 1965, and reached its lowest level on record in the late 1980s, with fewer than 40 deaths per 10,000 people.

In the four years since the crash scheme for death registration was implemented in Iran, this rate has risen to 466 per 10,000: or about five percent of the population every year. This seems unfeasibly high but has since been relatively stable.

This chart also suggests that Iranian average life expectancy has over time risen by more than 25 years, from less than 50 to more than 76. But the death rate has not changed much overall despite the sharp fluctuations. Both in the 1970s and in the 2010s, the mortality rate was between 45 and 50 people per 10,000. With decades of advancements in science and medicine behind us, one would expect today’s mortality rate to be lower than it was in the past.