Browsing by Author "Solon, Orville Jose C."

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    A mother's touch: a study on the impact of maternal education on the educational outcomes of their children
    (2022-06-11) Magpantay, Isaac Raphael C.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This study aims to study the impact of maternal education on the probability that children will achieve higher educational outcomes. An ordered probit model was used, and marginal effects were computed in order to assess the effect of maternal education on the probability of achieving higher educational outcomes. The results suggest that parental education has a significantly positive effect on the probability that a child will achieve higher levels of education, with maternal education having a stronger effect. Aside from this, results also suggest that daughters are more likely to attain higher educational outcomes regardless of parental education and urbanity. Lastly, household income is also statistically significant, with higher levels of income associated with higher likelihood of higher education. The results of this study point towards policies targeted towards improving the low educational attainment of mothers and daughters, given how the benefits of maternal education lasts across generations.
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    A study on the influence of OFW parents on children’s education
    (2022-06-13) Llamas, Sophia Margarita E.; Uy, Jan David D.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper seeks to establish the influence of Filipino parents working abroad on their child’s educational attainment. In order to accomplish this, we look into the principal factors that affect a child’s education according to established literature; this includes sex, income, parent’s education, and public spending on education. Then we look at the nature of overseas workers, specifically overseas contract workers in the Philippines. We hypothesize that OFWs will positively influence their children’s educational attainment. Data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) and the Labor Force Survey (LFS) is then used to serve as the data points for this study. We then run a logit regression on the difference of the child’s educational attainment with the household head’s educational attainment against the principal factors, working abroad variable, and interaction variables. From this, we find that past literature on the effects of sex, income, public spending, and parent’s education are true. Furthermore, we also find that the presence of a parent working abroad increases the likelihood that the child will have the same or higher educational attainment than the household head. After which, recommendations for future research on this field are annotated.
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    A tax incidence analysis on overseas Filipino workers’ remittances
    (2025-05-30) Diapana, Ma. Isabel M.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Although there is a growing interest in remittance taxation, there is currently limited empirical literature that addresses concerns regarding the economic burden of a remittance tax. This paper aims to bridge this research gap and analyze who will pay for a possible remittance tax in the Philippines. This paper utilizes theory of tax incidence, utility maximization, and New Economics of Labor Migration to analyze incidence of remittance tax. Using household-level data from the merged 2023 dataset of Family Income and Expenditure Survey and Labor Force Survey (FIES-LFS) collected by the PSA, the paper estimates a two-stage Heckman model of household remittance behavior and use this to evaluate the impact of remittance tax on OFWs and their households. The results show that there is likely a differential impact of remittance tax on various household types.
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    An analysis of the impact of free public secondary education act of 1988 (RA 6655) and the governance basic education act of 2001 (RA 9155) on high school enrollment and completion
    (2015) Devela, Zarina Pauline T.; Generalao, Ian Nicole A.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This study aims to determine the impact of the following laws on the enrollment and completion of high school education especially among the poor individuals: (a) Free Public Secondary Education Act of 1988 (RA 6655) and (b) governance Basic Education Act of 2001 (RA 9155). Studies show that these laws have not been fully effective because access on secondary education was declining with negative net participation rates recorded throughout the years. We used two approaches to further study the effects of each law. The first approach classifies all individuals into three age cohorts: (i) those who are not affected by any law (43 years old and above); (ii) those affected exclusively by RA 6655 (29-42 years old); and (iii) those further affected by RA 9155 (12/15-28 years old) comparing their high school enrollment and completion. The second approach focuses on the public high school program in terms of its leakage and under coverage among current high school-aged individuals (12-16 years old). The data used was the 2014 Annual Poverty Indicator Survey (APIS). We came up with three models derived from the Hausman specification test from several models. The variables added into these models were derived from the education analytical framework of FASFAF, et al. (2004) which includes household characteristics, household head characteristics, and the child‟s characteristics. Logit and Multinomial Logit regressions were employed for the first and second approaches, respectively. Our estimates tell us that both laws significantly increased the probability of high school enrollment and completion. RA 6655 alone had relatively smaller effects on members of households belonging to the bottom three deciles. But with the implementation of RA 9155, the effect was magnified and channeled towards the lower deciles although without the guarantee of secondary schooling completion. Furthermore, high leakage and under-coverage rates of the public high school program were observed. These results suggest the need for a better targeting system among the poor and provision of additional financial assistance such as scholarship grants and loans to give the poor an equitable access and chance to enter and complete secondary education.
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    An analysis on the risk premium on wage in the context of the Philippine labor market
    (2018-12) Bergante, Blush Paulyn P.; Castillo, Reevien C.; Quimbo, Stella Luz A.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    With the influx of job opportunities in the Philippines as the economy continues to grow, occupational injuries have also started increasing, which provides an avenue for compensating wage differentials (CWD) in order to attract workers to accept hazardous occupations. A number of related literature have contrasting results regarding this: some articles say that there is indeed a positive CWD for hazardous occupations (Kneisner and Leet 1991; Kostiuk 1990; Devi, Shanmugam, & Jayasree 2012) and some countries, where unemployment is relatively higher, have negative CWD. This means that workers in hazardous occupations have relatively lower wages than those in non-hazardous occupations (Holmlund 1983; Joyce et. al 2010; Knutsson 2003; Pietroiusti et. al 2010;Schernhammer 2001; Benavides 2000). With such, we use Adam Smith’s CWD theory to look for evidence of hazard premium in highly hazardous occupations in the labor market of Philippines to see if having a highly hazardous occupation really translates to higher wages. Our study uses a wage model to examine the wage differential between highly hazardous and non hazardous occupations. However, our study shows that in the group of occupations with significant results, we found that, generally, there is actually a negative estimate -- highly hazardous occupations have less wages compared to non-hazardous occupations. This finding is important as it could be a basis for policy intervention since the Philippines has an existing hazard pay scheme for public health workers, and having incentives/compensation for only a specific group of workers with highly hazardous occupation shows unfairness and inconsistency.
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    An assessment of the predective power of the stock market and labor market Nexus in the Philippines
    (2015-06) Pornillos, Paul Ryan H.; Triguero, Rafael G.; Solon, Orville Jose C.; Ducanes, Geoffrey M.
    This paper examines the predictability of the classical inflation - unemployment trade-off in the Philippines using their interaction with essential stock market and macroeconomic variables. Amidst the improving capital environment in the country as result of enhanced political governance and other factors that reduce the level of risks to financial development, it is worth noting what the implications of these are on other economic indicators as well as the overall economy in general. This study inspects quarterly macroeconomic and stock market data . from 2000 to 2014 and estimated different models to test the interactions between these variables and devise an alternative method for forecasting inflation and unemployment. Results show that the ARMAX estimation outperforms naive models in forecasting inflation while VAR seems to be the most effective method in forecasting unemployment ·in an eight- quarter horizon.
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    An assessment on the effectiveness of a soft drink tax in reducing total sugar consumption
    (2015-12) Koon, Jeffrey A.; Valmorida, John Michael P.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper aims to determine the effectiveness of imposing a tax on soft drinks to reduce total sugar consumption. According to a study by the American Heart Association (AHA), soft drinks are the leading source of added sugar (AHA, 2014). According to the World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF International) there are three approaches to reduce sugar intake: (a) reduce the availability and affordability of sugar and sugary products (b) influence the acceptability for alternatives and (c) raise awareness about the sugar contained in products (WCRF International, 2015). We use a demand for sugar model to estimate the taxes on soft drinks to be imposed. In constructing this model, we computed for the expected sugar intake from a regular or commercial dose of soft drink. We do this in order to reference actual consumption with established sugar levels. We estimated our model using the 2013 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority. Due to missing variables on soft drink prices, we used a two-step model to estimate predicted household consumption and prices. The basic estimates of elasticity for soft drinks range from -0.8 to -1.0 (Andreyeva et al., 2010) consistent with our results of -1.0. Controlling for factors such as age of the household member, region, education of the household head, and income we find that an increase in the price of soft drinks leads to reduced consumption of soft drinks but total sugar consumption does not decrease by a significant amount.
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    An exploratory multiple case study on road right-of-way and LGU participation in underground distribution systems (UDS) of Philippine LGUs
    (2023-02) Gonzaga, John Roel I; Santos, Roman Christopher; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper seeks to determine the impact of road right-of-way and LGU participation on public-infrastructure project outcomes; specifically within the context of transitioning overhead T&D lines to underground cables in particular cities in the Philippines. It is hypothesized that road right-of-way and LGU participation play vital roles in determining transition outcomes. To test said hypothesis, five distinct variables, (1) road right-of-way, (2) LGU participation, (3) Project Characteristics, (4) City Characteristics, and (5) LGU characteristics will be measured against one dependent variable, Project Outcome, for 8 distinct cases situated in varying degrees of project completion in the Philippines. Through the analysis of these six variables, distinct findings are established: (1) road right-of-way is a main roadblock in infrastructure development and (2) LGU participation significantly lowers the burden brought about by these road right-of-way problems. This being the case, this study finds that (1) the existence of road right-of-way problems can be considered as one of the main determinants of success in the transition from overhead T&D lines to underground cables; and (2) active LGU participation is vital in the planning, implementation, and maintenance of electrical T&D lines and, by extension, public-infrastructure projects, in general.
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    Analyzing the effect of household income on female labor force participation in the context of educational attainment, marital status, and urbanization
    (2023-06-27) Custodio, Bryan A.; Mozo, Anjelalie B.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    The study investigates the relationship between Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) and household income (HI) and examines how this relationship varies with educational attainment, marital status, and urbanization. The main hypothesis is that while a negative relationship exists between HI and FLFP, the magnitude, direction, and/or other dimensions of this relationship are affected by a woman's marital status, educational attainment, and urbanization. To test this hypothesis, the study estimates five distinct binomial probit models to test the inclusion of variables of interest and their interaction terms with total household income in relation to FLFP, using the most recent 2018 merged data from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) and Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). It is found that without the inclusion of education, marital status, and urbanization, the probability of women joining the labor force increases with household income but at a decreasing rate. Meanwhile, when education is taken into account, the impact of household income on female labor force participation (FLFP) is entirely negative. However, in this model, higher-income households tend to experience a greater positive effect from education in terms of FLFP. Urbanization and marital status were not found to have any strong effect on the direction of the relationship of household income to FLFP. However, urban and marital status did have effects on the slope, with the effect being stronger for married individuals than those not married. Ultimately, this study provides insights into the factors that negatively affect and positively contribute to the labor force participation of women in the Philippines, allowing policymakers to design targeted interventions that address barriers and strengthen
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    Are taxes on gaming progressive? an analysis of the incidence of taxes on gaming activities
    (2014-04) Bravo, Karen Andrea V.; Pascua, Patricia Beatrice R.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Gambling activities are deemed to be voluntary thus imposing taxes raises the questions of equity and efficiency. This study aims to determine how progressive or regressive taxes on gambling are in the Philippines. This will be done by estimating a model of who gambles, and how net winnings differ across different income brackets. Using the Heckman Regression Model, we find that, with the availability and proximity of gambling activities in the Philippines, taxes on any gambling activities burden the bottom 30-percent of income strata.
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    Banking on remittances: an analysis on the causality of the savings behavior of remittance receiving households
    (2012-10) Magsino, Josemaria Carlo Faner; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    The aim of this paper is to analyze the Overseas Filipino Workers' recipients' savings activity after their income has been augmented by their cash receipts from their relatives abroad. OFW s compose around 10% of the whole Philippine population, and they have been considered as the Philippines' modem day heroes because of their contribution to the stimulation of the economy. It is also crucial to analyze the relationship of these remittances with bank activities since these savings, in the form of bank deposits can help bring the economy back to its stable state during bad times, as in shocks, which is already a prevalent trend in the international scene; as well as the effects of deposits on stimulating economic growth through the multiplier effect. Using a Heckman Two-Stage model and the dataset from the Annual Poverty Indicator Survey (APIS) 2010, this study found out that remittance increases both the likelihood and the actual value of money being deposited in banks. While some other factors, such as sex of head of household and family size, deter the amount that will be saved. From the study, there has been no significant relationship garnered from the regional and geographical location of the household.
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    Beyond connectivity: why internet access and Philhealth coverage operate independently in Philippine healthcare utilization
    (2025-12-16) Cui, Robin Martin; Go Tian, Anthony Joshua; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper examines the determinants of healthcare utilization in the Philippines, focusing on the roles of insurance coverage, digital access, and socioeconomic factors. Prior studies suggest that insurance and digital connectivity independently increase healthcare access when controlling for educational attainment, wealth quintile, age, urban residence, access barriers, marital status, number of living children, and employment status. (Finkelstein et al. 2012; Dorsey & Topol 2016). However, evidence on their interaction effects and distributional impacts in low- and middle-income countries remains limited. This paper integrates Grossman's health capital model (1972), Gertler and van der Gaag's full price theory (1990), and Veinot et al. (2018) and Crawford (2020) digital determinants framework (2005) to frame the research question from which an empirical model is derived. This empirical model is estimated using 2022 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey data (N = 27,813) following multinomial logistic regression with cluster-robust standard errors. Results suggest that after controlling for illness severity and demographic factors, PhilHealth coverage is associated with higher face-to-face consultation odds by 94.2% (p = 0.04), but internet access shows no significant independent effect (p =0.070), and the two operate independently rather than synergistically (p = 0.143). Policy simulations quantify these effects at scale: achieving universal PhilHealth coverage would increase consultation rates by 0.27 percentage points (pp) , universal internet by 0.15 pp, and both combined by 0.37 pp, leaving 88.48 percent of ill women without care and demonstrating negative complementarity (-0.06 pp). These findings imply that expanding internet infrastructure alone will not translate into increased healthcare utilization without complementary policies addressing affordability, digital literacy, and institutional integration of telemedicine within the national health insurance framework.
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    Clinical and socioeconomic correlates in the care of patients with appendicitis
    (2002-10) Caballes, Alvin B.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    The study intended to determine how the quality of care for patients with appendicitis was affected by several clinical and socioeconomic variables. Data was collected retrospectively from appendectomy cases at the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital for the year 2000. The following variables were utilized as the parameters for quality of care: time interval from onset of symptoms to surgery, time interval from surgical consult until surgery, number of antibiotics utilized, kind of antibiotic utilized, incidence of late pathology (i.e., ruptured or gangrenous appendicitis), and total length of hospital stay. Analysis was by multiple and logistic regression. Different sets of independent variables (with diverse magnitudes of associations) were determined to be significantly associated with individual quality of care measures.
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    Community development projects for the Yolanda victims: A study on the Yolanda relief operation
    (2015) Vitug, Maria Fatima R.; Yamat, Mara Donna A.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Anyone can attest to the Philippines’ abnormal traffic situation. Roads are congested nearly any time of the day. While it is true that the congestion can be attributed to the lack of motorist discipline, it cannot be denied that the increasing number of private vehicles plays a big role in the situation. Buying new vehicles in the Philippines is slowly becoming the norm, thanks to attractive rates offered by competing car manufacturers. With that in mind, this study aims to extract the price elasticity of automobile demand and quantify the impact of a price increase on demand in order to aid policy-making. An OLS regression was ran to serve as a benchmark model, but its results were inconsistent due to endogeneity. To address this, a cross-panel Instrumental Variable 2SLS regression was used in order to obtain price elasticity. The estimation concluded that the price elasticity of demand for automobiles is 2.851103 which matches theory that short-run elasticity of automobiles is elastic. A progressive excise tax on automobiles may be imposed in order to curb demand for automobiles and to increase government revenue.
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    Cutting down on salt: The potential impact of a tax on processed meat to reduce salt intake to the recommended level
    (2015-12) Maderazo, Sarah Mishael S.; Timbol, Jan Hannah B.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Should processed meat be taxed in order to reduce salt intake? And if so, by how much? Salt is needed by our bodies to function properly (Chen, Zieve, & Ogilvie, 2014). But if taken excessively, it can lead to high blood pressure (American Heart Association, 2015). According to the World Health Organization, the recommended level of salt intake is 5 grams a day. However, food products such as processed meats which use salt as a preservative contribute to a person’s excessive salt intake. Consumption of such products drastically increases one Filipino’s salt intake to 15 grams a day (Ong, 2014). Processed meats are said to contribute much to a person’s daily salt intake because of their growing popularity and convenience (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). The study of Micha, Michas, and Mozaffarian (2012) shows that processed meats are 400% higher in salt content than unprocessed meats. The consumption of processed meats increases the risks of coronary heart disease (CHDs) and type 2 diabetes. The amount of salt in processed meats accounts for two-thirds of the risk difference. Using the 2013 Annual Poverty Indicator Survey data, we want to test the hypothesis that imposing a tax would decrease per capita processed meat consumption and in turn reduce salt intake to the recommended level. We begin our estimates by using a standard demand model for processed meat with income, own price, and prices of its potential substitutes and complements. Then, we test for alternative model specifications by controlling for other factors such as household features and characteristics of the household head which may affect consumption of processed meat. Our study estimates both the own-price and cross-price elasticity with respect to an increase in the price of processed meat. By simulating price increase levels, we find that imposing a 58% tax on processed meat leads to the 10-gram target reduction in one’s daily salt intake. Our results provide evidence that a policy like food taxation can be an effective mechanism to reduce excessive salt intake of Filipinos and address the health problems associated with it.
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    Determinants of health care demand in the Philippines - lessons from recent studies
    (2023-01-10) Caurez, Beatrice Nathalie L.; Sambajon, Dana Eilyn O.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Understanding healthcare demand allows policymakers to gain useful information for improving people's health through improved access to health facilities. There have been numerous studies on healthcare demand but there has not been a comprehensive review and compilation of their findings and methodologies, especially since they produce conflicting results. This paper is mainly focused on two things, analyzing the existing studies and literature about healthcare demand in the Philippines and combining lessons from these past studies to come up with a latest model that will aid in understanding the healthcare demand in the country. Building on previous studies, we specified 12 outcome categories using a multinomial logit model. These outcomes are a combination of the health status of individuals (sick and not sick) and the 5 types of health facilities visited, if any. Due to the wide gap in PhilHealth accreditation between hospitals and public health facilities, this study separated hospitals (public and private) from health facilities (public and private). Furthermore, this study’s model included those who are sick but chose not to visit any healthcare facility since most of the previous healthcare studies reviewed usually only included those who visited a facility to determine demand. The majority of our variables of interest (costs, severity of illness, reasons for visiting) have the same relationships with healthcare demand regardless of the individual’s health status. The results for the costs and reasons for visiting variables revealed insignificant effects on general healthcare demand, which matches Akin et al’s [1986] findings. However, this is contrary to the results of Ae Kim et al [2014], who found the cost of healthcare to be significant in healthcare utilization or demand. On the other hand, it was observed that there were varying representations for the severity of illness variable, which lead to differences in the results of previous studies. This study used categories of illnesses to represent the severity of illness and it was observed to have a positive correlation with sick individuals’ healthcare demand. Meanwhile, insurance and wealth variables exhibit notable differences in both not sick and sick individuals. Different trends among respondents coming from different wealth indexes were revealed.
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    Differential effects of remittances and domestic income on household expenditure shares: evidence from the 2023 FIES and LFS
    (2026-01-06) Adan, Alexandria Loreine S.; Go, Edrea Beatriz O.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This study examines whether Filipino households treat remittance income differently than domestic income across eight expenditure categories. The analysis is framed using the Mental Accounting Theory (Thaler, 1990) and Liquidity Constraint Models (Deaton, 1991; Carrol, 1997), where remittances are treated as a distinct, non-fungible source of income to test the differential effects of remittance and domestic income on household expenditure shares. Using a merged dataset of the 2023 Labor Force Survey (LFS) and Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model estimated the differential effects of remittance income and domestic income on expenditure shares. The study observed distinct differences in how households allocate remittances compared to domestic income: both income sources reduce food and drink expenditure shares, but remittances exhibit a significantly larger reduction of Php 2.22 per 10,000,000 Php compared to Php 0.72 per 10,000,000 Php for domestic income. Remittances also demonstrated larger positive effects on investment-oriented categories including education and recreation (+Php 9.48 per Php 10,000,000), housing (+Php 3.88 per Php 10,000,000), and health (+Php 2.14 per Php 10,000,00), compared with smaller effects from domestic income. These patterns indicate that households channel remittances toward long-term investments and lumpy expenditures, reinforcing the role of remittances in enhancing household welfare and underscoring the need for policies that encourage productive investments beyond immediate consumption.
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    Double burden: the degree to which menopausal status hampers professional and domestic productivity of women
    (2025-05-27) Celeste, Princess Roselle G.; Flores, Rhiannon Jae G.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper examines the effect of menopause on the labor productivity of mothers, especially on both paid and unpaid work, which in tandem are commonly referred to as double burden due to its premise of a singular individual shouldering significant amounts of both. We refer to Grossman’s Model of Health Demand to explain how symptoms of menopause can affect work productivity of either type. A difference-in-difference model was used to estimate potential differences in either paid or unpaid hours worked among mothers who have and have not experienced menopause. This model was applied to participants of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey Dataset and its follow-ups from the years 1998-1999, 2002, and 2005. Our estimates show that menopausal mothers worked 75.64 hours less than mothers who have not undergone menopause in general. However, other factors such as educational attainment, socioeconomic status, marital status, and number of children may change the relationship between menopause and the number of paid hours worked. That said, menopause did not seem to have significant effects on frequency of absence. On the other hand, our estimates indicate that menopause does not have a significant effect on the number of hours spent on unpaid work in general. It instead affects how other factors influence menopause. These findings thus provide nuance to the current discussion regarding the effects of menopause on labor.
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    Educational attainment and time-related underemployment: evidence from the labor force survey 2018 and 2023
    (2025-12-16) Cabalu, Gabrielle Elise; Yaco, Madison Paege; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    This paper investigates how educational attainment influences the likelihood that a worker wants more hours of work, and if this relationship changes between 2018 and 2023, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. A study by Felipe (2018) reflects how the desire for more working hours has long been persistent among the employed Filipinos. Moreover, reports from the International Labor Organization (2020) and the Philippine Development Institute for Development Studies (2022) suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has further intensified this, significantly reducing total working hours and increasing the share of workers working less than the ideal 40 hours weekly. Becker’s (1964) human capital theory and the classic labor supply model of leisure-labor to frame the research question and draw the hypotheses that are used here. The empirical model is estimated using the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Labor Force Survey for the years 2018 and 2023 to represent the labor market outcomes before and after COVID-19 pandemic. Logistic regression method was used to examine the probability that a worker wants more hours of work as a function of educational attainment and other control variables including the demographic, occupational, and regional factors. The logit model used to assess whether this relationship changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. Results suggest that, after controlling for other factors, the effect is negative and statistically significant for both high school (-0.1995, p = 0.021) and college and above (-0.4614, p <0.001), but small. This relationship did not significantly change between 2018 and 2023. This implies that, while policies focused solely on raising education level may not yield commensurate reductions in underemployment, educational attainment continues to be a strong and consistent indicator of job quality, regardless of economic shocks.
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    Estimating the utilization rates of bilateral tubal ligation services in 2008 and 2011 with missing information on the year when the procedure was undertaken
    (2014-04) Cabarles, Ma. Aizl Camille B.; Solon, Orville Jose C.
    Estimation of annual use rates for bilateral tubal ligation (BTL) service is essential for program planning since it serves as basis in determining the resource requirements to ensure availability of BTL service. The standard method in estimating utilization of BTL service is based on the ex-ante decision on what family planning (FP) method to use. However, readily available data from population-based surveys, like the standard Demographic Health Surveys (DHS), provide ex-post information on what FP method women were currently using at the time of the survey. Incidence rate measures the annual utilization of BTL service but population-based surveys yield the prevalence rate, a cumulative estimate of BTL utilization. The prevalence rate when used for annual estimation would overestimate the number of women expected to have undergone the procedure in a given year. Given the limitations of available data, use of a two-stage model that follows Heckman's approach is proposed to estimate the incidence rate. The first stage estimates the BTL prevalence rate, while the second stage allows estimation of annual BTL utilization using information on the year of BTL operation which is available in the 2008 NDHS. Result of the mean estimates showed that BTL use rate in 2008 was only 0.302 percent, significantly lower than the reported BTL prevalence rate of 6 percent. However, information on year of BTL operation is not always available. For some DHS-like surveys that have missing information on the year of BTL operation such as the 2011 Family Health Survey (FHS), it is proposed that the year of last pregnancy be used as proxy. To determine the validity of the proposed solution, the two-stage model with information on year of BTL operation and the two-stage model with proxy indicator are implemented using the 2008 NDHS. The models are then compared using the Hausman specification test. Test result showed that the two models have no systematic difference, thus, the two-stage model with proxy variable is a valid alternative of the model with information on year of BTL operation in cases where the latter is not available. Using the most recent data, BTL use rate in 2011 was estimated at 0.167 percent or equivalent to 37,115 BTL clients, significantly smaller than the reported BTL prevalence rate of 5.6 percent (equivalent to 1.3 million women).