What do Filipino women want? Their ideal number of children at two





An important wish of most Filipino women that they cannot attain is their desired number of children. Three out of four women want to plan their pregnancies, but they end up having one child more than they wanted.

This has been the gray scenario in the country for decades, said Benjamin de Leon, president of the Forum for Family Planning and Development, Inc. (The Forum), the advocacy organization that works with local community networks in promoting reproductive health and rights.

“Filipino women should be able to have the number of children that they want,” said de Leon. “If women are able to achieve this, they are also able to lead a better quality of life for their children and families.”

De Leon cited the 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) that found 75% or 3 out of 4 women in the childbearing ages of 15-49 years wanted to have only two children.  Most women said they wanted to stop having children (60% of the 75%) and the rest wanted to have children at a later time to prevent pregnancies occurring too close to each other (15% of the 75%).

Overall, the NDHS noted a 31% rate of unmet need for family planning among sexually active women in both married and unmarried states, which consists of 17% of the age group 15-49 who want to practice some form of family planning (FP) but do not have access to FP methods; and 14% who are using ineffective traditional methods such as withdrawal.

Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)’s 2018 population estimates, there would be 27,713,110 women of reproductive ages 15-49 by the end of 2018. Based on this estimate, the unmet need for family planning would mean roughly more than 8 million women.

The PSA, which conducted the NDHS, also projected a total population of 107 million as of end-2018, with 3.22 births per minute.

The NDHS placed the country’s total fertility rate, a demographic indicator that estimates the actual number of children each woman would have in her childbearing years, at 2.7, which is more than the women’s ideal of two children. The fertility rate has gradually gone down over the years, from 3 children in the last survey in 2013.

The PSA also noted the fertility rates that are higher than the national average of 2.7 in some of the country’s 17 regions, most notably, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Bicol and Western Visayas with women having 3.8 to 4.1 children.

 “Women wishing to have just the right number of children is a good sign that family wellbeing that transforms into overall progress for the country has always been within reach,” said de Leon. “We just have to help women achieve what they envision for themselves and for them to have the reproductive rights they are entitled to,” he added.

De Leon stressed that “family planning is a human right that must be accorded to every woman who wants to practice it.” He said “a woman who has the means and the power to stop or postpone another pregnancy also has the capacity to attain education or be employed and fulfill her dreams.”

De Leon said the drop in fertility rate offers better chances that more and more women are now able to limit the number of births they deliver or space their pregnancies, which makes the work of organizations such as The Forum even more urgent now, as it continues to strengthen community groups that share its advocacies in helping women become aware of their rights to health services that support their desired family size.

“Family planning is still low among married women who are in the lowest socioeconomic levels and women who did not attend school,” he said.

De Leon said The Forum supports the government in its work in implementing the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health law that prioritizes permanent family planning methods which include bilateral tubal ligation for women and noscalpel vasectomy for men and long term methods such as intrauterine device or IUDs and progestin subdermal implants.

He said The Forum, which works in areas with high unmet needs around the country, believes that the wellbeing of women through proper awareness and use of family planning methods will impact positively in decreasing teen pregnancies, reducing maternal and infant deaths, preventing induced abortion cases, and ultimately go higher steps further in ending the cycle of poverty.

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