Economic uncertainties arising from the Covid-19 pandemic may have prompted more Filipinos to delay childbearing, data from a Commission on Population Development study showed.

Reluctance to bring babies into the world was noted as early as 2017 and 2018, during which total registered live births dipped to 1,700,618 and 1,668,120, respectively.

Then, a year before the pandemic in 2019, live births in the Philippines fell anew to 1,673,923, before dipping some more in 2020 at 1,528,684; and 1,364,739 in 2021. A rebound was seen in 2022 at 1,455,393.

The commission attributed the depressed interest in childbearing for the two pandemic years to individual preferences, the perceived lack of financial capacity, and heightened inflation during the Covid-induced economic slowdown.

“But even prior to the contagion, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) has disclosed that the majority of the country’s regions were already displaying a downturn in the total number of registered births in 2019,” the CPD said in a statement.

Focus group discussions in the study, dubbed “Fertility Decline during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” revealed that couples’ decision not to have children during the global health crisis also “increased the acceptability of modern family planning methods.”

CPD executive director Lisa Grace S. Bersales, Ph.D. said the study supports thinking that prior to the pandemic, many Filipinos “were already keen with their mindsets of delaying life-defining events such as dating, marriages and having children.”

“These preferences were reinforced by the shocks in broader socioeconomic conditions, and the rise in the level of uncertainties in various aspects of the pandemic,” Bersales said.

“We are now monitoring whether these fertility behaviors have become the norm post-pandemic,” she added.

Bersales pointed out that the “prevalence of contraceptive use has risen” from 40 percent in 2017 to 42 percent in 2022.

CPD noted that Filipinos have increased their dependency on family planning methods, of which the pandemic was deemed as a key catalyst for the hike in usage.

The study also revealed that female-centric methods such as pills, ligation or female sterilization, and injectables are still the most preferred methods and that “women still carry out decisions with regard to FP as compared to men.”

“Filipino women who want no more children, and those wanting to have a child soon” decreased from 52.6 percent to 48.8 percent and from 15.1 percent to 13.9 percent, respectively,” she said.

“One positive result that came out from the pandemic was the more conscious consideration of couples’ and families’ socioeconomic capacities, as well as preparedness in their childbearing decisions,” she added.