While the prevalence of teen pregnancies in the Philippines has continued to decline, the Commission on Population (POPCOM) said it should study more on other factors affecting the country’s population growth.
This, as data from the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) showed that the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) has continued to decline from 6.0 percent in 1973 down to 1.9 percent in 2022.
During the recent National Data Dissemination Forum last June 6, Undersecretary for Population and Development (POPDEV) and POPCOM Executive Director Dr. Lisa Grace Bersales, underscored the need to “further analyze” factors that contributed to these findings.
Certain ages not included?
During the forum, Bersales pointed out that while incidents of teen pregnancies in the Philippines has continued to decrease, there is also a worrying trend of younger children getting pregnant.
The POPCOM executive director pointed out that teenage pregnancies still remain a “cause for concern” surrounding girls 15 to 19 years old, and more so for those girls aged 14 and below.
“I would like to put forward that we are closely monitoring those between ages 10 and 14, as they are still considered as ‘children,’” she pointed out.
“They are not covered by the NDHS; thus, we need to work more on our teenagers to lessen — if not make zero — pregnancies among them. As we have always maintained: Each teenage pregnancy is still one too many.”
Moreover, while POPCOM registered a 42-percent modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) among married Filipino women, their unmarried counterparts (particularly teenagers) register an mPCR of only 24 percent.
Disparities noted
Not only that, there is a “wide disparity” of the TFR reported in urban areas and rural areas in the country, as Bersales noted that the TFR reported in Metro Manila is 1.2 percent while the Bangsamoro Region reported 3.1 percent.
This trend, according to POPCOM, underscored the vital importance of educating women on birth control, especially in rural areas where illiteracy rates are still considerable.
According to data collected by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 2020, Metro Manila posted the highest basic literacy rate of 97.6 percent, while the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao placed last at 78.7 percent.
“Looking at the 2022 NDHS data, twice more children come from less educated and poorer women,” Bersales pointed out.
“I’m putting on alerts … on which population groups we need to prioritize in terms of fertility issues: women who are less educated, poorer women, as well as the sexually active and unmarried.”