Current and Cumulative Fertility

• Age-specific and total fertility rates for the survey are calculated directly from the pregnancy history data and are shown in Table 1, along with the mean number of children ever born. The total and age-specific fertility rates are for the three-year period before the survey, a period covering principally the calendar year 1995-1997.  The total fertility rate is the sum of the age-specific and is a useful measure of of the level of recent fertility.  It represent the number of children a woman would have by the end of her reproductive years if she were to bear children at the currently observed age-specific rates.  The total fertility rate for the three-year period  before the survey (approximately 1995-1997) is 3.7.  As can be seen in Figure 1, Filipino women have a late pattern of childbearing.
• The effect of the higher fertility rates prevailing in the past is evident in the mean number of children ever born in Table 3.  On the average, women have given birth to almost 2 children by their late 20s, almost four children by their late 30s, and almost five by their late 40s.  The difference between the mean number of children ever born to women 45-49 years (4.7) and the total fertility rate (3.7) is one child, indicative of the moderately declining fertility which the Philippines has experienced in the past two decades.

Trends in Fertility

• Trends in fertility in the Philippines since the early 1970s can be examined with data from prior surveys (Table 4).  During the period, fertility has declined from 6.0 in 1970 to 3.7 in 1995-1997 (Figure 2). The pace of fertility decline had been rather steady.  The total fertility rate has declined by 10 percent over the past five years, from 4.1 for the period 1990-1991 to 3.7 for the period 1995-1997.  Looking at rates by age, it is apparent that the fertility decline has occurred among women of all ages, but is steeper among older women (Figure 1).

Table 1. Current and cumulative fertility 
Age-specific fertility rates (per 1000 women) and total fertility rate for the three years preceding the survey and mean number of children ever born by age of women, Philippines, 1998