Slightly over half of the 414 teenage mothers in Catanduanes last year were still students when they have birth, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported last week.
Aside from the 210 students, another 203 or 49 percent were identified as housekeepers in their own homes while only one was reported to be an abaca farmer, the PSA Catanduanes Provincial Statistical Office said in its preliminary vital statistics on the issue.
In teenage pregnancies where paternal information was provided, 77 or 22.8 percent listed the father’s occupation as construction laborer while 65 or 19.2 percent are abaca farmers.
The other occupations recorded as the father’s work were students (10%), laborer (8.9%), fisherman (8%), delivery man or helper (2.4%), and farmhand (2.1%) while the others were either a security guard, store merchandiser or mason.
The statistics indicate that in every 100 live births in 2024, 12 were from teenage mothers. In addition, 153 of these cases involved minors aged 17 and below.
The youngest recorded mother in Catanduanes for 2024 was just 13 years old. The data also shows a gradual increase in teenage births with age, peaking at 19 years old with 165 births.
Out of the 414 total teenage births, the majority (95% or 393 cases) were non-marital babies, with only 21 babies born to a married couple.
In the same year, 76 teenage births were recorded without paternal acknowledgment, with Virac having the highest number of cases with 28, followed by San Andres with 13 and Caramoran with 8. Other municipalities also reported cases of unacknowledged birth: Bato (7), Baras (5), Pandan (5), Bagamanoc (3), San Miguel (3), Gigmoto (2), Panganiban (1), and Viga (1).
Out of the 76 teenage births without paternal acknowledgment in 2024, the highest number was recorded among 19-year-old mothers with 26 cases, followed by 18-year-olds with 15 cases and 17-year-olds with 14 cases. The younger age groups also had reported cases, including 16-year-olds (12), 15-year-olds (7), and 14-year-olds (2).
The youngest recorded father of a teenage mother in 2024 was 16 years old, while the oldest was 49 years old. The majority of fathers were within the younger adult age group, with the highest number recorded at 19 years old (54 cases), followed by 20 years old (47 cases) and 21 years old (38 cases). Teenage fathers, aged 19 and below comprise 26.3% (109 cases) while fathers aged 20 to 24 years old contributed to 38.9% of the cases.
Among the 414 recorded teenage births in 2024, the majority of fathers (25.6%) were older by 3 to 5 years, followed closely by those who were 1 to 2 years older (23.4%).
Meanwhile, 14.7% of fathers were 6 to 10 years older than the teenage mother, and 5.6% had an age gap of 11 to 20 years.
Notably, 0.7% of fathers were more than 20 years older than the teenage mother. On the other hand, 6.5% of fathers were the same age as the mother, while 5.1% were younger. Over 18 percent of the births had no stated paternal age.
The highest number of teenage births was recorded in July, with 47 cases, followed by January (41) and March (40). The months with the lowest recorded teenage births were May (25), June (29), and August (29). The remaining months had figures ranging between 30 to 37 cases.
In 2024, the distribution of teenage births in Catanduanes varied between the mother’s place of residence and the actual place of birth.
Virac recorded the highest number of teenage births, with 233 cases, despite having only 93 resident teenage mothers, indicating that many expectant mothers from neighboring municipalities came to Virac to give birth.
Similarly, Pandan had 45 teenage mothers residing in the municipality but recorded 66 births. San Andres had 74 resident teenage mothers, yet only 37 births occurred within the municipality. Some areas, such as Bagamanoc, Baras, and San Miguel, had teenage mothers residing there but no recorded births, suggesting that these mothers gave birth in other municipalities. Additionally, two teenage mothers were recorded as residing outside the province.