Cutbacks in Publicly Funded Contraceptive Services Reduce Filipino Women’s Ability to Practice Contraception

Poor Women Most Affected by Higher Contraceptive Costs

A sharp decline in publicly funded contraceptive services and supplies in the Philippines since 2004 has created severe barriers to women’s contraceptive use, according to a new analysis conducted by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute. The proportion of modern method users who obtain their supplies from the public sector declined, from 67% in 2003 to 46% in 2008. Thus, more women are now relying on the private sector to obtain modern contraceptives, which means higher costs and reduced access, particularly for poor and low-income women.

This decline is largely due to USAID’s ending its family planning program in the country and the Filipino government’s reluctance to replace it with a viable national public program. Access to contraception for poor women now depends mostly on the ability and willingness of local-level government health offices to offer these services and, to date, few of these offices have devoted resources to meeting women’s need for contraception. Local governments can purchase contraceptives and include family planning services at their discretion as part of their public health functions if and when their limited budgets allow for such spending.

Facts on Barriers to Contraceptive Use in the Philippines, released May 28, 2010 by the women’s health advocacy group Likhaan, in Quezon City, the Philippines, and the Guttmacher Institute, analyzes new national data on women’s contraceptive use, to better understand barriers to women’s contraceptive use.

The analysis found that the cost of contraceptives has become an increasingly common reason for not using contraception in recent years: in 2008, 15% of married women cited this reason, compared to 8% in 2003. Cost is a particularly severe barrier for unmarried women. In 2004, 42% of sexually experienced single women cited cost as a reason for not using a method.

“Immediate changes in national policies and programs are needed to respond to Filipino women’s contraceptive needs”, said Junice Melgar, Executive Director of Likhaan. “Family planning services should be a major public health priority to ensure that funding makes its way to the local-level health care providers on the frontlines of meeting women’s needs”.

Based on national surveys, the analysis found that overall contraceptive use among married women has increased very slowly in the past 10 years, from 47% in 1998 to 51% in 2008, an average increase of only about 1% per year. Similarly, modern contraceptive use has not improved in recent years: it remained at 33-34% between 2003 and 2008. Meanwhile, women are having, on average, one more child than they want.

As a result, 22% of women have an unmet need for contraception, meaning they can become pregnant, but do not want a child in the next two years or at all and are not using any contraceptive method. This proportion is higher among the poorest married women (28%) and among unmarried sexually active women aged 15-29 (24%), and lowest among the richest married women (20%).

“Fulfilling the demand for contraceptives will be especially beneficial to disadvantaged women who have less access and experience greater levels of unintended pregnancy than their better-off counterparts.” added Sharon Camp, President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute.

Browse the fact sheet or download as a PDF (402 KB)

Slide presentation (ppt, 5.2 MB)