'Having out your lot' is no longer the order of the day. Simply put, women are no longer opting for large families, but instead are only having one or two children. This has been the trend for more than a decade now.

This, according to experts, is due largely to Jamaica's family planning programme, which has been supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) since the 1970s. During that period the fertility rate - which measures the average number of children born to a woman - was 6.7.

But with rigorous campaigning using catchy phrases like 'Two is better than too many', which was coined by the National Family Planning Board, the fertility rate decreased dramatically.

According to the 2002 Jamaica Reproductive Health Survey, the total fertility rate has consistently fallen over the past 27 years, reaching 2.5 children per woman in 2002. This is an 11 per cent fall compared to 1997 and 45 per cent fall compared to 1975.

In the '70s, there were Family Life Education teacher training workshops, a scheme for the commercial distribution of condoms and oral contraceptives. In 1974, the government officially integrated family planning services with the Ministry of Health's primary health care programme, greatly increasing the number of health centres offering family planning. By the end of the decade, an island-wide network of family planning clinics was operating and birth rates
had decreased.

Dr Leith Dunn, head of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at UWI, Mona, said women are having fewer children mainly because of the improvement
in the use and knowledge of contraceptives. She said the government joined up with international organisations to educate women and their partners about sexual health and the use of contraceptives. She also noted that women who want to move ahead in their careers normally have fewer children.

"The United Nations Population Fund and the Ministry of Health have been providing programmes where they educate adolescents about family planning," she said. "They [MOH] have also partnered with the Women's Centres to target young males and females to bring about an awareness of sexual health and the use of contraceptives."
Furthermore, Dr Dunn noted that women are now more concerned about their sexual health.

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica said that in 1997, the fertility rate among women stood at 2.8 children per woman in every 1,000 women. Three years later that number decreased to 2.25. This number continued to decline to 2.21 in 2001, 2.05 in 2002, 1.99 in 2003 and 1.93 in 2004. It was also evident that women in the age group 20-24 had the highest number of births - 99 per 1,000.

Meanwhile, the JRHS said the decline in 2002 was evident in younger age groups - from 112 births for every 1,000 women in
the age group 15-19 years in 1997 to 79 in 2002, and from 163 to 124 for age group 20-24. However, the number of women in the 25-29 age group who had children rose from 112 to 118.
The JRHS also stated that women in rural areas had a fertility rate of 2.8, while the rate for women in the Kingston Metropolitan Area was 2.4. Women in other urban areas had a fertility rate of 2.2.
"This was not the pattern in 1997. As in 2002, the highest TFR (total fertility rate) was in the rural areas," said the JRHS. "On the other hand, in 1997, the lowest was found in the Kingston Metropolitan Area."

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica states that preliminary estimates of births occurring in 2005 was 45,474, while between 2000 and 2004, it ranged between 48,700 in 2000 to a low of 42,400 in 2004. "Jamaica has been placed with four other Caribbean countries among a group of 54 countries at intermediate fertility levels," STATIN said.
Intermediate fertility levels is below five children per woman.

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