Population Institute

The focus of the study is to unravel the complex relationship between migration and fertility in the context of adaptation, disruption, selectivity, socialization and maximization hypotheses. The study also examined migration trends and patterns in the Philippines for the past ten years utilizing the 1993 NDS and 1998 NDHS. The latter was used, with ever-married Women 15-49 as the sample population, in the migration and fertility analysis. Holding the confounding effect of education, current age, current use of family planning, age at first marriage and work status, and the findings in the logistic regression, show that the fertility-reducing effect of migration is only evident in the past fertility among recent immigrants irrespective of origins and place of destination. It is less likely that they will have past birth compared to non-immigrants at destination. Household maximization hypothesis supports the finding rather than the fertility norms-based adaptation. Conversely, long-term migrants from rural-urban areas increase the odds for having recent fertility by 1.4 times compared to that of non-migrants at urban destination. The socialization hypothesis appears to be supported by long-term rural to urban migrants who are on the average older and early marries.

The other finding of the study reveals that the urban-ward migration stull dominates the migration pattern and trend but there is a striking evidence of increasing rural-ward movement among young, single and married educated Filipino women.