The size, structure and life cycle of family households in the Philippines

Abstract

This study investigates the size, structure and life cycle of family households in the Philippines mainly using data from a 0.5 per cent sample of the 1990 population census data for the Philippines. It also determines how the rates of marriage, fertility, separation/divorce, and mortality affect the family status of women in the Philippines focusing on data from the population censuses carried out in 1970 and 1980, and data for the same years from the vital registration system. Family households in the Philippines in 1990 were predominantly nuclear in structure. By comparison, extended family households accounted for only approximately 25 per cent of the total households. The incidence of extended family households tended to be positively related with the level of urbanisation. Metropolitan Manila had the highest percentage of extended family households in 1990 while the rural areas had the lowest. These findings refute the view that modernisation leads to the nuclearisation of family households; in the Philippines the occurrence of family extension tends to be due more to housing constraints and economic considerations than to family cohesiveness. The mean household size in the Philippines increased between 1903 and 1970 and appeared to have peaked at 5.9 persons per household between 1970 and 1975. Declining fertility, particularly the relatively marked decrease between 1975 and 1980, and the reduction in the number of non-nuclear family members (relatives and nonrelatives) per household between 1975 and 1990 resulted in a downward trend in mean household size after 1975. Contrary to the pattern noted for previous years, this study reveals that in 1990 the mean household size did not increase with the level of urbanisation. In 1990, the mean household size was lower in Metropolitan Manila than anywhere else in the the Philippines despite the fact that it had the highest proportion of extended family households. An examination of the distribution of family households according to their life cycle state reveals that approximately 80 per cent of family households in the Philippines were husband-wife families with unmarried children. Accordingly, members of family households consisted mainly of children and young adults and were thus predominantly never-married. The majority of family households, irrespective of their family life cycle state, were nuclear in structure. However, lone-parent families headed by a male, irrespective of age, and families where the head or the wife of the head was 55 years of age or older had a greater tendency to be in extended family households compared with the families in other life cycle states. The characteristics of persons in one-person households were also investigated. The elderly made up a considerable proportion of the total number of persons living alone in 1990; the majority of them were widowed women, reflecting the lower mortality of women than of men. The impact of the rates of marriage, fertility, mortality and separation or divorce on the family status of women in the Philippines was investigated by simulating the life course experience of a hypothetical cohort of women on the assumption that they experience the demographic rates obtaining in the Philippines in 1970 and in 1980. Worth noting among the results is that relatively more women under the 1980 demographic regime would become mothers, but they would be mothers of relatively few children. Family status life tables were also calculated by assuming future scenarios concerning the rates of first marriage and mortality. Possible changes in fertility were not considered because of the complexity of calculating future age-parity-specific fertility rates. Noteworthy among the findings is that a marked improvement in life expectancy at birth would result in a considerable increase in the time expected to be spent as a daughter of at least one parent over 65 years old. Despite some limitations in the data and in the methods used in this study, the results have important policy implications for future social and economic needs related to changes in the structure of families and households, such as the demand for housing and other consumer goods which are purchased on a family or household unit basis rather than on a one person basis, the care of the young and of the old, and the role and status of women. Show more