23 Dec 2016

Tongan women in NZ buck trend of declining birth rate

From , 4:03 pm on 23 December 2016

New Zealand's fertility rate is declining to a point below what's needed to sustain its current population, but Tongan women seem to be bucking the trend.

To find out why, a Tongan researcher, Pauline Fakalata, conducted an anonymous survey and interviews with groups of Tongan women in Auckland to explore existing attitudes towards contraceptives.

Ms Fakalata told Indira Stewart that despite the high fertility rate for Tongan women in the country, the majority of those surveyed wanted to use birth control but were not doing so.