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DHS COMPARATIVE

REPORTS 25

DESIRED NUMBER OF CHILDREN:

2000-2008

FEBRUARY 2010

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It was prepared by Charles F. Westoff of the Office of Population Research, Princeton University. MEASURE DHS assists countries worldwide in the collection and use of data to monitor and evaluate population, health, and nutrition programs. Additional information about the MEASURE DHS project can be obtained by contacting ICF Macro, Demographic and Health Research Division, 11785 Beltsville Drive, Suite 300, Calverton, MD 20705 (telephone: 301-

572-0200; fax: 301-572-0999; e-mail: reports@macrointernational.com; internet:

www.measuredhs.com). The main objectives of the MEASURE DHS project are: to provide decisionmakers in survey countries with information useful for informed policy choices; to expand the international population and health database; to advance survey methodology; and

to develop in participating countries the skills and resources necessary to conduct high-quality demographic and health surveys.

DHS Comparative Reports No. 25

Desired Number of Children: 2000-2008

Charles F. Westoff

ICF Macro

Calverton, Maryland, USA

February 2010

Address for correspondence: Charles F. Westoff, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace

Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544-2901, USA; Phone:

609
-258-5867; Email: westoff@princeton.edu.

Editor: Bryant Robey

Document Production: Yuan

Gu and Shanxiao Wang

This study was carried out with support provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the MEASURE DHS project (#GPO-C-00-08-00008-00). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Recommended citation:

Westoff, Charles F. 2010. Desired Number of Children: 2000-2008. DHS Comparative Reports

No. 25. Calverton, Maryland, USA: ICF Macro.

iii

Contents

Tables ...............................................................................................................................................v

Appendix Tables ..............................................................................................................................v

Figures........................................................................................................................................... vii

Preface ............................................................................................................................................ ix

Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... xi

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... xiii

1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1

2 Ideal Number of Children and Reproductive Intentions .......................................................3

3 Trends in Reproductive Preferences ......................................................................................7

4 Planning of Recent Births and Wanted Fertility Rates ........................................................19

5 Trends in Wanted, Unwanted and Total Fertility Rates ......................................................23

6 .........................................................................................31

7 The Influence of Education and Development ....................................................................37

8 Reproductive Preferences and Unmet Need ........................................................................43

9 Summary and Conclusions ..................................................................................................49

References ........................................................................

Appendix A: Measures of Reproductive Preferences ....................................................................53

v

Tables

Table 2.1. Ideal number of children and the percentage of married women who want no more

children ..........................................................................................................................4

Table 4.1. Planning status of births in the five years preceding the survey ..................................19

Table 5.1. Decline in the total fertility rate and in its wanted and unwanted components ...........28

Table 6.1. Ideal number of children and percentage who want no more children for currently married men in sub-Saharan Africa and several countries in other regions. ...............31 Table 6.2. Recent trends in differences in male-female average number of children desired in

sub-Saharan African countries .....................................................................................35

Table 7.1. Wanted fertility and socio-economic development in developing countries ...............41

Table 8.1. Characteristics of five African countries with low unmet need and high

reproductive preferences ..............................................................................................44

Table 8.2. Multivariate analysis of factors associated with the number of children desired by married women (standardized partial regression coefficients) ....................................46 Table 8.3. Multivariate logistic regression (odds ratios) of factors affecting intention to use contraception among married women who have never used any method. ..................47

Appendix Tables

Table A-1. Correlations of indicators of reproductive preferences ...............................................55

vii

Figures

Figure 3.1. Trends in the average ideal number of children for never-married women under

25 years of age for selected countries ..........................................................................8

Figure 3.2. Trends in the percentage of currently married women who want no more children for women with two or three children for selected countries .....................................13

Figure 5.1. Trends in wanted, unwanted and total fertility rates for selected countries ...............24

Figure 6.1. Trends in mean ideal number of children for currently married men in sub-

Saharan Africa ............................................................................................................33

Figure 6.2. Trends in the proportion of married men in sub-Saharan African countries who

want no more children ................................................................................................34

Figure 7.1. Trends in the percentage who want no more children among married women with

no education for selected countries ............................................................................38

ix

Preface

One of the most significant contributions of the MEASURE DHS program is the creation of an

internationally comparable body of data on the demographic and health characteristics of populations in

developing countries. The DHS Comparative Reports series examines these data across countries in a comparative framework. The DHS Analytical Studies series focuses on specific topics. The principal

objectives of both series are to provide information for policy formulation at the international level and to

examine individual country results in an international context. Whereas Comparative Reports are

primarily descriptive, Analytical Studies have a more analytical approach. The Comparative Reports series covers a variable number of countries, depending on the

availability of data sets. Where possible, data from previous DHS surveys are used to evaluate trends over

time. Each report provides detailed tables and graphs organized by region. Survey-related issues such as

questionnaire comparability, survey procedures, data quality, and methodological approaches are

addressed as needed. The topics covered in Comparative Reports are selected by MEASURE DHS staff in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some reports are updates of previously published reports. It is anticipated that the availability of comparable information for a large number of developing

countries will enhance the understanding of important issues in the fields of international population and

health by analysts and policymakers.

Ann Way

Project Director

xi Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Judie Miller at the Office of Population Research, Princeton

University for help in the production of the tables and figures in this report, Guillermo Rojas of DHS for

help in the production of a table, Luis Ochoa of DHS for help in finding more recent data for Brazil and

Guatemala, and John Casterline of Ohio State University for sending me estimates of unwanted fertility

based on a new method. xiii Executive Summary This report is a review of reproductive preferences in 60 countries based on data from

Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between 1998 and 2008. Several measures of

preferences are used: the number of children considered ideal, the proportion of women who want no

more children, the planning status of recent births, and the Wanted Total Fertility Rate. For those

countries that have conducted more than one survey, trends in reproductive preferences have been

documented. For a subset of mostly sub- described. A review of the most recent DHS estimates of levels and trends of reproductive preferences

indicates that the number of children desired is declining in most of the developing world with the

exception of some countries in western and middle sub-Saharan Africa where, on the whole, an average

of 6.0 children are still desired. In southern and eastern Africa, the mean number desired is 4.5. In

contrast, in Asia and in North Africa the average is 2.9 and in Latin America and the Caribbean 3.0 children. In most of the 60 countries reviewed, there has been a decline in the Total Fertility Rate which is

due largely to a decline in the number of children wanted rather than to a reduction of unwanted births.

The highest proportion of unwanted births is in Latin America and the Caribbean, as high as 39 percent of

all recent births in Bolivia. Among men, the number of children desired follows a similar pattern to that of women but

typically at slightly higher levels. There is little evidence that this gender difference is diminishing.

Although the long-

preferences continues, there is evidence of a decline in preferences among women with no formal

education even in sub-Saharan Africa but more strongly in Asia and Latin America. A special analysis of unmet need and reproductive preferences focuses on several countries in

sub-Saharan countries where unmet need is low because preferences are very high (Chad, Guinea,

Mozambique, Niger and Nigeria). The number of children desired is associated with child mortality, , and exposure to the mass media.

1 1 Introduction

Information on the number of children desired and trends in that number lie at the heart of family

planning and population policy concerns. In particular, this information can identify populations with a

demand for services and inform the interpretation of trends in contraceptive prevalence and fertility.

Several measures of reproductive preferences are now in standard use: the desired or ideal number of children, reproductive intentions particularly the proportion of women that report wanting no more

children the planning status of recent births, and Wanted and Unwanted Total Fertility Rates. There are

many issues surrounding the quality of these measures including basic questions of reliability and validity

and their predictive utility. These issues are discussed in Appendix A of this report. Although the report contains several new directions of analysis, the main objective is to record

the most recent estimates of reproductive preferences for a large number of developing countries and to

describe trends in different measures of preferences for the growing number of countries that have

conducted more than one survey. With the exception of the trend analyses, the focus is largely on surveys

since the turn of the century. In the main, the report is an update of the three earlier DHS reports on the

same subject (Westoff and Bankole, 2002; Adetunji, 1998; Bankole and Westoff, 1995; and Westoff,

1991). These earlier reports, in turn, are successors to a similar publication based on the World Fertility

Surveys (United Nations, 1985; Kent and Larson, 1982). With the exception of Brazil (Brazilian Ministry

of Health, 2008) and Guatemala (Ministerio de Salud Publica, 2002), this report is based entirely on data

collected in the DHS project.

3 2 Ideal Number of Children and Reproductive Intentions

The most recent estimates of two of the basic indicators of reproductive preferences the ideal number of children and the proportion of women who want no more children are shown in Table 2.1. All but a few of these surveys were conducted since the turn of the century. The mean number of children considered ideal also known as the desired number of children - is based on responses to the survey children and could choose exactly the number of children to have in your whole life, how many would ter version of the question was asked of women who did not have any children. A small number of women responded to this question with non- igits but tended to be greater (between 10-20 percent) mainly in some countries in western and middle Africa. The mean number of children desired by married women in the 18 recent surveys conducted in As

ia and North Africa ranges from 2 in Ukraine and India to 4 in Jordan and Pakistan. In Latin America

and the Caribbean the range is from 2.2 in Brazil to 3.7 in Guatemala. The highest ideal numbers are

clearly evident in western and middle Africa ranging from 4.8 in Ghana to 9.2 in Chad and 9.1 in Niger,

with an average of 6.1 children. Cape Verde is a distinct outlier here with a desired number of 2.8

children. The countries of eastern and southern Africa are also on the high side but generally lower than

in western and middle Africa, ranging from 2.7 in Swaziland to 6.3 in Eritrea, with an average of 4.5.

Since the number of children desired can be influenced by the existing number of children, a

separate calculation for women with 2 children (or with 1 child and currently pregnant) is also shown in

Table 2.1. The number 2 was selected because virtually all women in developing countries want at least 2

children. This statistic typically runs somewhat lower in value than the estimate for all married women

but generally shows the same overall international picture. The second indicator of reproductive preferences included in Table 2.1 is a measure of the desire

not to have any additional children. This information is derived from the response to a direct question:

Would you like to have (a/another) child or would you prefer not to have any (more) children?Women who have been sterilized for contraceptive reasons or whose husbands have had such an operation are

regarded as not wanting any more children. Since the proportion wanting no more children is obviously

associated with the existing number of children, the estimates in Table 2.1 are shown not only for all

(married) women but also for women with 2, 3 or 4 children. The estimates for Asian and North African countries are quite consistent with the picture for ideal number of children. If we focus on women with 2 children, the lowest proportions of women who say

they want no more children are in Jordan and Pakistan, 22 and 27 percent respectively. The highest value

is for Vietnam where 92 percent of women with 2 children report not wanting any more. Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala in the Latin America and Caribbean group show the lowest

proportions intending to cease childbearing. Guatemala in particular shows that only 70 percent of

women who already have 4 children report that they want no more. Brazil is at the opposite extreme with

98 percent wanting no more.

4 Table 2.1. Ideal number of children and the percentage of married women who want no more children.

Country

Survey

Year Mean Ideal Number of

Children Percentage Who Want No More

Children2

All

Married

Women Married

Women with 2

Children1 All Married

Women Number of

Children

2 3 4

ASIA AND NORTH

AFRICA

Armenia

2005

2.7 2.6

71

79 91 93

Azerbaijan

2006

2.6 2.5

72

84 92 93

Bangladesh

2007

2.3 2.2

62

74 89 93

Cambodia

2005

3.2 3.6

57

47 70 85

Egypt 2008

2.9 2.6

63

59 88 92

India

2005/06

2.1 2.4

70

83 90 92

Indonesia

2007

2.8 2.6

53

62 79 85

Jordan

2007

4.0 3.4

50

22 39 64

Kazakhstan

1999

3.0 2.7

58

65 76 80

Moldova

2005
NA NA 64

83 89 89

Morocco

2003/04

3.3 2.8

54

44 64 82

Nepal 2006

2.4 2.1

71

83 91 93

Pakistan

2006/07

4.1 3.6

52

27 54 73

Philippines

2003

3.2 2.9

61

56 78 85

Turkey

2003

2.5 2.3

69

80 90 92

Turkmenistan

2000

3.7 3.1

55

43 64 86

Ukraine

2007

2.0 2.2

58

80 88 68

Vietnam

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