Philippine Statistics Authority | Republic of the Philippines

Adolescent Pregnancy in the Philippines: 2016-2020

Reference Number: 2022-477

Release Date: 08 December 2022

Explanatory Note

Data on births presented in this press release were obtained from the live births registered, either timely or belatedly, in the appropriate Office of the City/Municipal Civil Registrars throughout the country and submitted to the Office of the Civil Registrar General and subsequently submitted for encoding to the Office of the Civil Registrar General through the Provincial Statistical Offices (PSOs) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Information presented includes births that occurred from January 2016 to December 2020. Figures presented herein are not adjusted for under-registration. Births of Filipinos whose mother’s usual residence is abroad and foreign nationals with births occurring in the country during the reference period were included in this report.

About one out of ten babies are born to adolescent mothers

The number of registered live births to adolescent mothers or those aged 10 to 19 years showed a decreasing trend in the past five years. A decline of -22.7 percent in adolescent births was observed from 2016 to 2020 with 203,085 and 157,060 births, respectively. These births consistently made up about one-tenth of all live births in the country. (Figure 1 and Table 1)

From 2016 to 2020, adolescent birth rate has been declining each year. Between this period, a decrease of -24.0 percent was observed from 20.1 per 1,000 females aged 10 to 19 years in 2016 to 15.2 per 1,000 females in 2020. (Table 1)

While the number of total adolescent births is declining, births to mothers younger than 15 years old has been slightly increasing each year, apart from the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Between 2016 and 2020, registered births to adolescent mothers aged 10-14 years increased by 11.0 percent from 1,903 in 2016 to 2,113 or 0.14 percent of all registered births in 2020. During this period, an average of five to seven births daily are to mothers 10-14 years old. Moreover, birth rate in 2016 was 37.2 per 100,000 females 10-14 years old, which was up by 8.4 percent in 2020 (40.3 births per 100,000 women aged to 10-14 years). (Table 1)

Figure 1. Number and Percent Change of Registered Adolescent Births, Philippines: 2016-2020

Most births to adolescent mothers are fathered by men older by three to five years

From 2016 to 2020, majority of registered adolescent live births were fathered by men three to five years older than the mother. These births accounted for more than one-fourth of the total births to adolescent mothers each year. Furthermore, fathers who are more than 10 years older than the adolescent mothers are responsible for about six to seven percent of births, every year, from 2016 to 2020. However, almost one in five adolescent births do not have information on the age of the father. (Figure 2 and Table 2)

In 2020, 23.8 percent of live births to adolescent mothers aged 10 to 19 years old have fathers in the same age group, exhibiting an increasing trend from the registered share of 18.6 percent in 2016. On the other hand, adolescent births fathered by adult men 20 years old and over saw a declining trend from 64.8 percent of registered adolescent live births in 2016 to 59.5 percent in 2020. (Table 3)

Figure 2. Percent Distribution of Registered Live Births by Age Gap

between Father and Adolescent Mother, Philippines: 2016-2020

Four in five adolescent births are first-order births

Majority of births to mothers 10 to 19 years old, in the period 2016 to 2020, were first-order births accounting for more than 80.0 percent of the total adolescent births in the country each year. On the other hand, between 15.0 to 17.0 percent of the births are second-born to mothers 10 to 19 years old, while the remaining one to two percent were third or higher-order births. (Figure 3 and Table 4)

Figure 3. Percent Distribution of Adolescent Births by Birth Order,

Philippines: 2016-2020