Investigating Unmet Demand for Family Planning and its Potential Impacts on Timor-Leste's Demographic Future

Abstract Timor-Leste has experienced rapid demographic shifts since achieving independence in 2002, with its population growing by 70% in the 20 years. Without improving access to family planning services and promoting greater reproductive autonomy, fertility decline may slow. This paper adopts Bongaarts’ Proximate Determinants as a framework to identify what societal factors enable family planning uptake, before using these to develop projections of Timor-Leste’s possible future population. 2016 Demographic and Health data was used to investigate the effects of socio-economic factors on contraception use and met demand for family planning among married women in Timor-Leste. Women's recent employment and access to mass media led to higher probability of contraceptive uptake and family planning access. Met demand for family planning also increased where women’s partner had completed primary education. Three fertility assumptions were created by varying levels of unmet demand for family planning to project the effect of varying contraceptive uptake on Timor-Leste's future population. Under these scenarios, the population is projected to grow to between 1.96 and 2.39 million by 2052. This exercise demonstrates that without continuing fertility decline, Timor-Leste will continue to experience high child dependency, potentially diminishing human development outcomes and placing ever greater strain on resources and services.