Creating demand for family planning in Indonesia

This paper explores several questions related to this objective. Which route to replacement level fertility is Indonesia most likely to take? Which individual characteristics and/or geographic areas are most associated with "excess" fertility? What are the possible reasons for high fertility preferences? Achieving replacement level fertility will require an enormous change in fertility patterns. An analysis of data on current and replacement levels of fertility from three national surveys (1987, 1991, and 1994) showed that in 1994, 68% of all women age 30-34 who had two children had already gone on to have a third child, and 55% of those with three births had already progressed to a fourth. Achieving replacement level fertility would require reducing the parity progression ratio from two to three births to approximately 26% and from three to four births to approximately 13%, declines of 62% and 76%, respectively, from current levels. What distinguishes women who stop at two or three births from those who go on to have more children? Analysis of the survey showed that there are regional differences in patterns of parity progression. For example, ratios fell consistently over time only in East Java, DKI Jakarta, and Outer Java-Bali II. Women"s education is not strongly related to parity progression, and while current employment is, the direction of causality is not clear. To determine why the preference for high fertility remains pervasive, this paper also looks at motivation to limit childbearing. Results suggest that reproductive preferences are not well internalized for many Indonesian women, and that only a minority are highly motivated to limit childbearing to a two-child family. Comparisons across surveys suggest that lack of internalization of reproductive preferences and low motivation to limit childbearing persist across socioeconomic and regional groups, despite continuing government educational and promotional efforts. Because of this low motivation, a related study, PN-ACB-156, suggests the need to complement the GOI"s current family planning demand fulfillment approach, which is geared to helping parents achieve their desired number of births, with a family planning demand creation approach, which prioritizes development activities on the basis of their ability to foster parent"s reproductive preferences. (Author abstract, modified)