The Philippines’ total fertility rate (TFR) fell to 1.9 children per woman in 2022, below the replacement fertility level, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Sunday.
Preliminary results of the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey showed the TFR of Filipino women aged 15 to 49 years declined from 2.7 children per woman in 2017.
“Hence, the Philippines is already below the replacement fertility level of 2.1 children per woman,” the PSA said.
TFR refers to the average number of children that an average woman is expected to have in her lifetime, while the replacement fertility level is the average number of children born per woman needed by a population to exactly replace itself from one generation to the next, without migration, which is estimated at 2.1 children.
The United Nations estimated in 2017 that nearly half of the world’s population lived in countries with below replacement fertility level.
Data also showed the Philippines’ TFR was now below the 2020 world fertility rate of 2.39. Most developed countries had lower fertility rates than in undeveloped and developing countries.
The PSA said that by area of residence, Filipino women living in rural areas had slightly higher TFR of 2.2 children, compared to women living in urban areas with 1.7 children.
It said fertility was low among adolescents with 25 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 years. It peaked at 105 births per 1,000 among women aged 25 to 29 years, and then decreased thereafter.
“Generally, the fertility has been declining in all age groups since 2008, except in the younger and older women aged 15 to 19 and 45 to 49 years, respectively,” the PSA said.
It said fertility rates for women aged 20 to 24 years steadily declined from 163 births per 1,000 women in 2008 to 84 births per 1,000 women in 2022. This was also observed in women aged 25 to 44 years.
The 2022 NDHS results were based on interviews with 27,821 women aged 15 to 49 who were asked whether they wanted more children and, if so, how long they would prefer to wait before the birth of the next child.
About half (48.8 percent) of married women aged 15 to 49 years said they wanted no more children.
Data showed the percentage of women who wanted no more children increased with the number of living children, from 4.3 percent with no living children to 72.0 percent with six or more children.
Around 13.9 percent of women wanted to have another child within the next two years, while 17.4 percent wanted to wait at least two years before having another child.
Less than 1 percent (0.2 percent) of women wanted another child but had not decided when, and 8.1 percent were undecided about having more children.
The PSA said it would present a comprehensive analysis of the data in a final report in 2023.