Iran has followed a unique and rapid path to replacement-level fertility. Preliminary results from the 2000 Demographic and Health Survey for Iran show a decline of 32% in the total fertility rate between 1996 and 2000, from nearly 3 children/woman to 2. Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shivazi, a demographer at the University of Tehran and a presenter at the UN Expert Group Meeting on Completing the Fertility Transition, points to evidence that the rapid decline in births has been the result of simultaneous reduction at all ages: delay in childbearing by young couples, increased spacing of births by married women, and cessation of births by older women. Such widespread acceptance of the two-child norm is largely due to the national campaign encouraging small families; to the national health care network, which has delivered family planning while also reducing infant mortality; to government programs promoting rural development and literacy; and to the country's Islamic leadership's support for family planning. It is noted that the combination of all these factors, while not altering women's rights, has improved women's status.