Young Adult Fertility Survey 1982

The Young Adult Fertility Survey (YAFS) was undertaken to address primarily the gap in information on sexual and fertility related attitudes and behavior of Filipino youth and secondarily to provide a closer link between research and policy. The specific objectives of the YAFS include:

  1. To provide a description of sexual and fertility related problems of young Filipinos specifically:
    • the extent and range of sexual and fertility related attitudes and behavior,
    • the incidence of dating, premarital sex, pregnancy, marriage, and childbearing,
    • the knowledge of, attitudes towards and practice of contraception.
  2. To identify the risk factors affecting the fertility behavior of this age group and subsequently to determine segments of the population at high risk to early marriage, early pregnancy, and childbearing.
  3. To gain an understanding of some of the demographic, social and economic consequences of early pregnancy and childbearing at the individual and family levels.

A sample size of 5,204 married and unmarried females whose ages were between 15 to 24 years was chosen with the barangay as the primary sampling unit and the household as the ultimate sampling unit. Every region of the country except for Region XII was divided into urban - rural strata from which the sample barangays were picked with the probability of being sampled proportional to its size. From each of the sample barangays, an average of 50 households were picked at random and the eligible women were interviewed.

Risk factors examined include: socio-economic background of the respondent's family; individual demographic and socio-economic characteristics; relations with parents and home influences; experience on biosocial factors (age at menarche, etc.); and sex education.

The questionnaire contained blocks of data on issues relating to the young adult's sexuality and fertility such as:

  1. Socioeconomic background of respondent's family,
  2. Individual demographic and socioeconomic characteristics,
  3. Relations with parents and home influences,
  4. Experience with bio-social factors,
  5. Sex education, and
  6. KAP on dating, premarital sex, pregnancy, marriage and non-marriage conception.

Two types of questionnaires were developed so as to distinguish between the responses of the single females and the married ones. The single females were asked on circumstances of her non-marriage while the married ones were asked in greater detail regarding her fertility history.


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