LOILO City – There are more pros than cons in the declining total fertility rate (TFR) in Western Visayas, according to the Commission on Population and Development (CPD).
This offers opportunities, not just challenges to the region across sectors, said CPD Region 6 director Harold Alfred Marshall.
He saw opportunity to accelerate development, reduce poverty and improve labor force participation.
The TFR drop, therefore, should not be a cause for alarm, said Marshall.
He talked about the policy and program implications of the TFR result during a recent regional dissemination forum of the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) final report here.
The final report presented by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the region’s TFR is 2.2 children per woman for the three-year period preceding the survey, which is lower when compared with the three children per woman during the 2017 survey.
While it is still higher than the national rate of 1.9 children per woman, the region’s fertility rate has “decreased substantially” since 1993.
“The TFR for Western Visayas for the past three decades steadily decreased from 4.2 children per woman in 1993 to 2.2 children per woman in 2023,” said PSA-6 senior statisticalsSpecialist Rovelyn Llamas in her presentation.
Marshall attributed the downward trend to the Responsible Parenthood and the Reproductive Health Law although there are also other programs and policies that contributed to the reduction of the fertility rate.
He said that Western Visayas is lagging in terms of demographic dividends because economic resources are not free enough to go into savings and investments.
“Because we are having more children than what is desired,” said Marshall.
Currently, only the National Capital Region, Cordillera Administrative Region, and Region 4-A are the regions enjoying economic dividends, he said.
The 2022 NDHS is the seventh demographic health survey conducted in the Philippines in collaboration with the NDHS program and the 12th in the series of NDHS conducted every five years since 1968, said Nelida Amolar, officer-in-charge of the Philippine Statistics Authority 6.
“The indicators derived from this survey are central for policy-making, program planning, monitoring, and evaluation for population and health programs, including those related to sustainable development goals (SDG) and the Philippine Development Plan,” she added.
The survey that was conducted from May 2 to June 22, 2022, covered over 88 primary sampling units of the 2, 440 housing units in the region with women 15 to 49 years old as respondents. (PNA/PN)
