Makati: Eastern Visayas maintained a fertility rate of two children per woman in 2025, according to data from the 2025 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS).

According to Philippines News Agency, Jeremias Cabasan, senior population officer of the Commission on Population and Development in Eastern Visayas (CPD-8), stated that the figure remains unchanged from the 2022 NDHS results. Cabasan highlighted that the current fertility rate is slightly lower than the 3.1 recorded in 2019 and significantly lower than the 5.9 recorded in 1988. The fertility rate represents the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime.

Cabasan attributed this decline to positive developments in the region, including improved awareness of responsible parenting, better access to family planning services, higher education levels among women, and growing aspirations for Filipino families. He added that the decrease in fertility rates is strongly linked to family choices shaped by economic conditions and concerns about quality of life.

Despite the positive trend in family planning, Cabasan noted that Eastern Visayas still faces a high poverty incidence, with 27.3 percent of families living below the poverty threshold. To address this, he emphasized the need to strengthen family planning programs further. Efforts to improve these programs include intensifying community outreach activities, providing proper counseling, and ensuring the steady supply of family planning commodities, especially in underserved communities.

The 2025 NDHS marks the 13th in a series of national demographic and health surveys conducted since 1968, and it is the first to be implemented as a midterm survey, carried out every three years in the Philippines. Information gathered through the NDHS aims to help policymakers and program managers design and evaluate programs and strategies to improve the health and development of Filipinos.