“The more, the merrier” is an adage of the past. Now, it is more apt to say “the more, the more miserable.” Likewise, “cheaper by the dozen” has lost its charm as a simple economic formula. Each new child is an additional expense poor families can ill-afford.

These two traditional sayings are not prescriptions for development.

Truly, there is an inverse relationship of number of children with income and quality of life.

Indeed, the Philippines cannot achieve sustainable development if the government and policymakers continue to default in addressing and solving with strong political will the grave population problem.

With the current total fertility rate at 3.3 children per woman, the specter of our population hitting a staggering 94 million this year is not only menacing but ominously explosive.


It was a Filipino, the late Rafael Salas, the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who enunciated 40 years ago that there are “crucial links between population and development” and there is “a need to take population factors into account in development plans.”

Studies have consistently shown that unbridled population growth stunts socio-economic development, aggravates poverty and demeans quality of life, thus making it more difficult for government to address the problem of underdevelopment.

In 2002 the UNFPA unequivocally stated that “family planning and reproductive health are essential to reducing poverty” and “countries that invest in reproductive health and family planning and in women's development register slower population growth and faster economic growth”.

The Family Income and Expenditures Surveys (FIES) from 1985 to 2000 also clearly show that poverty incidence steadily increases with each additional child in the family.


The following are the adverse effects of high fertility and large family size, particularly on women and children:

1. High fertility impacts negatively on the lives of women. Multiparity is associated with maternal mortality because with each additional pregnancy, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying from maternal causes progressively increases.

Although pregnancy is not a disease, the fact that 11 women die daily in the Philippines from pregnancy and childbirth complications is akin to a crime. The WHO, UNFPA and Lancet are unanimous in stating that correct and consistent use of contraceptives can prevent as much as 35% of maternal deaths.

2. High fertility impacts negatively on the lives of children. Researchers conclude that “(c)hildren from large families are at significantly greater risk of living in poverty than children from small families.”

They do not only suffer from poor health, their educational opportunities are also limited. Because these children are more likely to suffer from poor nutrition and substandard childcare, they do not perform as well in school compared to children from small families. Their future and quality of life are jeopardized.

3. High fertility adversely affects quality of life – even across generations. Dr. Aniceto Orbeta asserts that large family size “has been identified as the main mechanism of the inter-generational transmission of poverty.”

The lack of education, poor nutrition and general ill-health that normally plague large families make it virtually impossible for its members to lift the family out of the quagmire of destitution. Indeed, large families perpetuate poverty across generations.

4. Large family size is a primary factor in the decline in household savings.     The costs of raising a child are high and can financially drain the family. While households with one child devote 10% of total household expenditures to childrearing, allocation for children jumps to 18% with the birth of a second child and increases to 26% for four children. Large families virtually have no savings.

5. Large families are more vulnerable to external economic shocks. Without adequate savings, large families are ill-prepared for the loss of employment or sickness or disability in the family. They will have more difficulty coping with the unexpected because they lack the buffer funds needed to tide them over hard times.

6. Large number of children is associated with decreased incomes and less investment in human capital. Pernia, et al. also documented that mean education spending per student per year drops from P1,787 for a family of four to P682 for a family size of 9 and above. Moreover, average health spending per sick family member falls from P1,464 to P756 over the same family size range.

7. Rapid population growth and high fertility impact negatively on economic growth. Population and poverty are intertwined in a vicious cycle. Excessive population growth exacerbates poverty while poverty spawns rapid population growth. They are the negative tandem of the “low level equilibrium trap”. 

The foregoing adverse effects are mainly due to and are further aggravated by lack of RH and FP information and services, particularly to poor and marginalized couples and communities.


RH is essential to women’s and children’s overall health. If it is neglected, primary aspects of their general welfare would be irrevocably compromised.

RH and FP reduce maternal and infant mortality and improve the health status of mothers and children. Contraceptive use leads not only to a decrease in pregnancy rates but also an even greater decrease in maternal mortality, simply by reducing the number of high-risk pregnancies according to the WHO.

The death of a mother has untold effects on her children. According to the UNFPA, “saving a mother’s life usually means saving the life of her newborn and older children. Children who have lost their mothers are up to ten times more likely to die prematurely than those who haven’t.”

Thus, preventing maternal death through effective family planning will also be a significant step in protecting children and ensuring a better quality of life for them.


Providing women the chance to plan and space their children will give them more opportunities to finish their education and secure productive work as they are liberated from unremitting pregnancies. Lower fertility ensures maternal health and frees women to pursue opportunities in education and employment and thus will enhance their self-esteem and uplift their social and economic status and that of their families.


We are currently trapped in a vicious cycle of high fertility and poverty – poor people continue to be impoverished because the cost of having many children drains their already depleted resources and at the same time poor people have more children than they can afford precisely because their being poor denies them access to family planning information and services.

But there is also a so-called “virtuous cycle” linking the family planning decisions of mothers with their children. It emphasizes the benefits reaped by children whose mothers practiced family planning.

Women who are able to avoid unplanned pregnancies will be able to give their children quality childcare, invest more in their education and ensure that they are better-fed and healthy. As adults, these children will also be better prepared to manage their own fertility and be more responsible parents themselves; be gainfully employed; and will be more equipped to ensure a better future for their own children.

To be able to jumpstart this virtuous cycle, policymakers must stop dillydallying on House Bill 5043 because RH, FP, population and human development are all intertwined and should be integral components of government’s development plans and poverty alleviation programs.

It is therefore imperative that Congress enacts public policies that help people better manage their fertility and have good reproductive health, especially the poorest women who have almost three times more children than they want.

Affording parents the right to freely and responsibly determine the number and spacing of their children will certainly have positive multiplier effects on the lives of the most vulnerable members of society – poor mothers and their children.