Based on the preliminary results of the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), the total fertility rate1 (TFR) of Filipino women aged 15 to 49 years declined from 2.7 children per woman in 2017 to 1.9 children per woman in 2022.
Hence, the Philippines is already below the replacement fertility level of 2.1 children per woman. By area of residence, women living in rural areas had slightly higher TFR of 2.2 children per woman as compared to women living in urban areas with 1.7 children per woman.
In 2022, fertility is low among adolescents with 25 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 years. It peaks at 105 births per 1,000 among women aged 25 to 29 years and then decreases 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.
Specifically, 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.
Fertility rate in PH declines to 2 children in 2022
In the 2022 NDHS, women 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%) of currently married women aged 15 to 49 years (including women who are sterilized or whose husbands are sterilized) want no more children. The percentage of women who want no more children increases 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 want to have another child within the next two years and 17.4 percent want to wait at least two years before having another child. Moreover, less than one percent (0.2%) of women want another child but have not decided when, and 8.1 percent are undecided about having more children.
The 2022 NDHS is the seventh Demographic and Health Survey conducted in the Philippines since 1993 as part of The DHS Program. Overall, 27,821 women aged 15-49 from 30,372 households were successfully interviewed in the 2022 NDHS.
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