If you’re putting off getting married and delaying having children, you are not alone, says the Commission on Population and Development (CPD).
This situation has been “reinforced” by rising prices and anxiety over economic concerns, a qualitative study commissioned by the CPD found.
In a statement, the commission said: “Economic uncertainties broughtabout by the COVID-19 health emergency have reinforced Filipinocouples and individuals’ preferences and behaviors on childbearing, asthey opted to delay or deprioritize having children due to their perceived lack of financial capacity and insufficient income.”
“These were further influenced by resultant hikes in prices of goodsand services,” it added.
CPD Executive Director Lisa Grace S. Bersales said their recent study supports the claim that Filipinos, even before the COVID pandemic,“were already keen with their mindsets of delaying life-defining events such as dating, marriages and having children”.
Focus group discussions and key informant interviews in the study dubbed “Fertility Decline during COVID-19 Pandemic” revealed that many couples’ decision not to have children during the global health crisis also “increased the acceptability of modern family planning methods.”
“But even before COVID the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)’sCivil Registration and Vital Statistics or CRVS has disclosed that themajority of the country’s regions were already displaying a downturn in the total number of registered births in 2019,” the CPD added.
The trend was seen “as early as 2017 and 2018, when there was adecline in total registered live births from 1,700,618 to 1,668,120, then in 2019 at 1,673,923,” the commission explained.
“The drop was more pronounced in 2020 as only 1,528,684 babies wereborn. The figure dipped further in 2021 to 1,364,739, but rebounded in 2022 at 1,455,393,” it added.