Family Planning in Asia and the Pacific - International Council on ...

Qualitative assessments by a number of researchers<strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>formed observers from <strong>the</strong> 1970s onwards havesuggested that most women <strong>in</strong> Papua New Gu<strong>in</strong>ea wouldprefer to have four children. However, <strong>the</strong> actual numberis less important than <strong>the</strong> balance of male <strong>and</strong> femalechildren. As Townsend (1984) notes, women need boysfor old-age support <strong>and</strong> girls <strong>in</strong> order to receive bridepricewhen <strong>the</strong>y marry (<strong>and</strong> child-price when <strong>the</strong>y havechildren). This observation highlights <strong>the</strong> cultural fact thatdecisions about <strong>the</strong> number of children that a woman willbear are not necessarily for her alone to make (or even forher <strong>and</strong> her husb<strong>and</strong> to make jo<strong>in</strong>tly) but belong to <strong>the</strong>social group. In fact, negotiations over bride-price may also<strong>in</strong>volve an agreement between <strong>the</strong> respective clans be<strong>in</strong>gl<strong>in</strong>ked by marriage regard<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> number of children ofeach sex that <strong>the</strong> woman would have.In traditional times, <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> some areas probably up untiltoday, a married woman who aborted a child or committed<strong>in</strong>fanticide could be depriv<strong>in</strong>g her own k<strong>in</strong> group of <strong>the</strong>payments or gifts that <strong>the</strong> fa<strong>the</strong>r’s k<strong>in</strong> group is obligedto pay on <strong>the</strong> birth of a child, depend<strong>in</strong>g on how manychildren she already had. Abortion could be grounds fordivorce at which po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>the</strong> woman’s k<strong>in</strong> group would haveto repay all or part of <strong>the</strong> bride-price <strong>the</strong>y had receivedfrom <strong>the</strong> husb<strong>and</strong>’s k<strong>in</strong> (O’Coll<strong>in</strong>s, 1979). Thus, so longas such <strong>in</strong>stitutions as bride-price <strong>and</strong> child-price areculturally supported, a woman is not completely free tochoose <strong>the</strong> number of children she will have. Never<strong>the</strong>less,it is possible to negotiate such issues when marriage isbe<strong>in</strong>g arranged, <strong>and</strong> it is highly likely that nowadays malek<strong>in</strong> groups will be satisfied with fewer children as <strong>the</strong> valueof children’s labour decl<strong>in</strong>es <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> cost of rais<strong>in</strong>g children<strong>in</strong>creases. 18The first reliable data on family size preferences <strong>in</strong> anationally representative sample was obta<strong>in</strong>ed from <strong>the</strong>1996 DHS. With a second DHS conducted <strong>in</strong> 2006 itis possible to measure changes <strong>in</strong> family size preferences.Table 16 shows ideal family size <strong>in</strong> 1996 <strong>and</strong> 2006 crossclassifiedby age. It is clear that <strong>the</strong> ideal number of childrenamong women has not changed significantly between1996 <strong>and</strong> 2006. (The small changes between <strong>the</strong> twosurveys <strong>in</strong> some age groups are unlikely to be statisticallysignificant.)The data suggest that women approach<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> end of<strong>the</strong>ir reproductive years (age 35-39) still wish to havefour children. However, when a comparison is madebetween <strong>the</strong> “wanted” TFR <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “actual” TFR <strong>in</strong> 1996<strong>and</strong> 2006, it is apparent that <strong>the</strong> gap between wanted <strong>and</strong>actual fertility is widen<strong>in</strong>g. This is evident from <strong>the</strong> data<strong>in</strong> Table 17, which shows that <strong>the</strong> gap between actual <strong>and</strong>wanted TFR has <strong>in</strong>creased from 0.9 to 1.4 between <strong>the</strong>two DHS. This widen<strong>in</strong>g gap implies that women are lessable to achieve <strong>the</strong>ir family size goals <strong>in</strong> 2006 than <strong>the</strong>ywere a decade earlier – yet ano<strong>the</strong>r <strong>in</strong>dication that familyplann<strong>in</strong>g services are not meet<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> needs of women.It is noteworthy that <strong>the</strong> gap between wanted <strong>and</strong> actualTFR is smallest <strong>in</strong> both years for women who have beeneducated to grade 7 <strong>and</strong> over; but <strong>the</strong> percentage <strong>in</strong>crease<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> gap is <strong>the</strong> highest for educated women. In thisgroup, <strong>the</strong> difference between wanted TFR <strong>and</strong> actualTFR <strong>in</strong>creased by 100 per cent (from 0.5 to 1.0), whereas<strong>in</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r groups <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>crease ranged from 66 per cent (forwomen with no education) to 33 per cent (for womeneducated to grade 6). The implication of <strong>the</strong>se figures isthat education is f<strong>in</strong>ally beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g to have a clear impacton desired family size, someth<strong>in</strong>g that was not so evident<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> past (Townsend, 1984).In sum, family size preferences should not present a socioculturalchallenge to family plann<strong>in</strong>g programmes <strong>in</strong> PapuaNew Gu<strong>in</strong>ea. It is not <strong>the</strong> case that women generally wanta large family <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>refore that <strong>the</strong> dem<strong>and</strong> for familyplann<strong>in</strong>g needs to be generated before family plann<strong>in</strong>gwill be taken up. This may well have been <strong>the</strong> situation <strong>in</strong><strong>the</strong> 1970s, <strong>and</strong> possibly up to <strong>the</strong> early 1980s, but it is not<strong>the</strong> case today. Women want fewer children than <strong>the</strong>y arelikely to have given <strong>the</strong>ir current access to <strong>and</strong> utilizationof family plann<strong>in</strong>g services. This is evident from Figure 6,which is based on data from a special DHS (based on <strong>the</strong>1996 model) conducted <strong>in</strong> 2002/03 <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> four prov<strong>in</strong>ces<strong>in</strong> which UNFPA has concentrated its activities s<strong>in</strong>ce1997.The figure shows that if this group of women were membersof <strong>the</strong> same cohort, <strong>the</strong>y would have reached <strong>the</strong>ir preferredor ideal family size (about 3.8 children) by age 35-39.However <strong>the</strong> mean number of children ever-born <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>mean number of surviv<strong>in</strong>g children cont<strong>in</strong>ue to <strong>in</strong>creasebeyond that age, reach<strong>in</strong>g about 5.5 by age 40-44. This isnot, of course, a real cohort <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> same sense that TFRis not calculated on <strong>the</strong> basis of a real cohort but ra<strong>the</strong>r asyn<strong>the</strong>tic cohort. Yet <strong>the</strong> data give an <strong>in</strong>dication that <strong>the</strong>“supply” of children exceeds <strong>the</strong> “dem<strong>and</strong>” for children evenwhen allow<strong>in</strong>g for <strong>the</strong> mortality of children. The motive tohave more births than needed <strong>in</strong> order to achieve a preferrednumber of children is significantly weakened as <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>fantmortality rate decl<strong>in</strong>es, as it has been do<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> Papua NewGu<strong>in</strong>ea <strong>in</strong> recent decades. “Excess” births to compensatefor <strong>the</strong> mortality of children are no longer required <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong>Papua New Gu<strong>in</strong>ea context, although <strong>in</strong>dividual women<strong>in</strong> high-mortality areas may be <strong>in</strong> this situation.374