Commission on Population: 'Filipino women want fewer children'

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino women now want fewer children than four years ago, the Commission on Population (PopCom) reported yesterday.

Citing data from the 2017 National Demographic Health Survey, PopCom said 75 percent or three out of four Filipino women aged 15 to 49 wanted to plan their families.

“The number of children women want in this country declined to only two in 2017 from 2.2 in 2013,” PopCom noted.

Fertility rate or the actual number of children in the Philippines, PopCom said, has dropped from three in 2013 to 2.7 in 2017 based on results of a survey done by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).  

The decline in the country’s fertility rate was attributed to the increased use of modern family planning by over 40 percent of currently married women who have shifted from traditional methods.

The survey period covered the four years since the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law in 2012.

When asked  how they wanted to plan their families, a high 60 percent of Filipino women surveyed said they wanted to stop having children while 15 percent would like to postpone having children.    

PopCom said the RH law resulted in faster decline in the country’s fertility rate as compared to previous surveys.

“The RH law is already in place and can be implemented with no restriction, the government should prioritize permanent and long term family planning methods,” PopCom executive director Juan Antonio Perez III said.

Permanent family planning methods include tubal ligation, intrauterine device (IUD) and subdermal implants for women, and vasectomy for men.

The survey also showed that incidence of teen pregnancy among 15 to 19 years old has gone down from 10 percent  in 2013 to nine percent.

But PopCom said the data included in the survey on fertility rate represent only those who are married.    

“We believe it is time to measure  the use of family planning  by all women and men, including couples who are sexually active, but not living together,” Perez said.   

He said PopCom is exerting all efforts to teach family planning, which is a right everyone is entitled to.

Based on the survey, Perez said 17 percent of married women want to practice family planning but do not have access to new methods while another 14 percent are using ineffective traditional ones.

Despite the decline in fertility rate, Perez said PopCom will continue to work hard to give the best family planning information and service to the Filipino family.

PopCom intends to reduce fertility rate to 2.1 percent by 2025 with the full implementation of the RH law. By 2040, the country’s population is expected to grow to 140 million.