POPULATION-JAMAICA: Women Still Having Too Many Children

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Vivienne Siva

KINGSTON, May 4 1998 (IPS) - For more than 20 years the Jamaican government has been telling the population that two is better than too many, when it comes to children. But the findings of a recent survey shows that while the island’s fertility rate has been steadily dropping, women are still having too many children.

In the 1960s Jamaica’s total fertility rate (TFR) was in excess of six children per woman. By 1975 a few years after the “two is better than too many” campaign started, the rate dropped to 4.5.

Buoyed by the initial early success of the fertility control programmes and statistics showing a steady increase in the use of contraceptives, the government made a policy decision to reduce the TFR to two children per woman by the year 2000.

However, recent findings now show that that target will not be achieved and this is causing concern among health officials and government policy makers.

“We have to look at the weak areas in our programme,” says Principal Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Eva Fuller-Lewis.

She admits that the goal of achieving the “replacement” rate, that is, two children per woman, will not be achieved at the target date.

But she says this will not affect another population goal — that of keeping the island’s population below 2.7 million by the year 2000. Official statistics based on the 1991 census show that the island’s population now stands at 2.3 million.

The 1997 Reproductive Health Survey conducted by the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) which was released recently showed that since 1993 — when the last survey was done — there has been only a 0.2 percent drop in the total fertility rate, moving from three to 2.8. This would make the decline in the Total Fertility Rate too slow to meet the year 2000 deadline.

In addition, there was a disturbing trend, the survey found, in that there was no decline in the fertility rate among women in three important age groups — the 15 to 19, 20 to 24 and 25 to 29. In fact, some areas of the island were showing an increase in fertility rates among these age groups.

According to the survey, the fertility rate was highest in the 20 to 24 age group with 162 births per 1,000 women.

In the western region which groups four rural parishes and includes the tourism resort of Montego Bay, there was in fact an increase in the fertility rate among teenagers. The rate for the 15 to 19 age group was 124 per 1,000 women.

Overall, children born to teenage mothers account for 25 percent of all births here. Of the more than 46,000 babies delivered in 1997, 11,567 were born to teenage mothers.

“We have to ask why this is so,” says Medical Officer of Health for the western region, Alexandrio Konstantinov. He says the region has recognised the problem and has established two “Teen Clinics” in an effort to deal with the situation.

The clinics are located in Montego Bay and in the farming community of Clarke’s Town in the parish of Trelawny.

The health officials are hoping that with these specialised clinics they will be able to target “at-risk” teens and lower the pregnancy rate.

One of the issues that have come up as part of this programme is whether contraceptives should be distributed in schools. The Jamaica Teachers’ Association is in support of such a move, but critics say this will encourage teenagers to have early sexual relations. A final decision on this issue is to be taken by the Ministry of Health.

But already Junior Minister in the Ministry of Education, Phyllis Mitchell has indicated that she would not support such a gesture as it would send a wrong signal to teenagers who need to be taught to abstain from sex and to focus on their careers.

Fuller says another factor that is affecting the programme is the inconsistency among men and women using a contraceptive method.

“About 50 percent of people stop using a contraceptive method after one year,” says Kostantinov.

And this is despite findings that show that contraceptive use among women has grown by six percent since the 1993 survey and now stands at 65 percent.

Project Director responsible for the survey, Carmen McFarlane says what the findings show is that Jamaicans are still having more children than they want.

The survey found that only 36 percent of pregnancies are planned with the bulk being mis-timed or unwanted. This means that there is a gap in the number of children women want and the number they actually have.

Thirty year old Janice Fenton fits into this category. “I have two girls and two boys and I really only wanted one or two at the most,” she says.

“In 1997 the average desire for children was put at 2.8 but people actually had 3.4 children,” says McFarlane. In 1993 the desire was for 3.4 children, but persons actually had an average of 4.4 children. “We still have some work to do,” she says.