Twenty years hence: changes in young Filipino women’s attitude toward premarital sex and unmarried childbearing since the 1980s

Maria Midea M. Kabamalan, University of the Philippines

Drawing from a series of national cross-sectional youth surveys in the Philippines, this paper documents the changing attitude of young women toward premarital sex and unmarried childbearing from 1982 to 2002. Results show that young Filipino women have become liberal over time. They have become more approving of premarital sex and they perceive the society, their family, neighbors, and friends to be more accepting of young unwed mothers. Decomposition analysis suggests that compositional changes contributed only minimally to this change. Moreover, characteristics that used to define the liberal from the non-liberal are disappearing. The author explores the implication of this trend to marriage in the Philippines in view of the growing prevalence of cohabitation in the country in recent years.