During a round-table discussion at UP’s Claro M. Recto Conference Room late last year, Dr. Nimfa Ogena of the UP Population Institute and President of the Philippine Population Association (PPA) presented the PPA’s statement which called for more scientific studies on population. However, she stressed that the PPA, an association of the country’s demographers, does not take a stand on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) Bill.
The PPA aims to draw the public’s attention to the essential elements needed to study population and promote better understanding of the arguments both for and against the much-debated RH Bill. The PPA advocates the better appreciation, recognition, and use of demographic research in the formulation of government policies and programs.
In last month’s UP Newsletter issue, this writer’s article “Demographers cite need for more studies to refine RH Bill” indicated PPA’s support of a national comprehensive policy on population control. Ogena said this was not accurate. Rather, the PPA enumerated factors affecting the Philippines’ population. Some of the other points of the statement were:
The migration of labor was not as significant a factor as commonly perceived and as compared with birth and death rates. With the annual population growth rate of 2.04 per cent, the population of 88.6 million will double in 34 years, or will be 177.2 million by 2041. The growth rate was based on the average increase in population of the country for the period from 2000 to 2007.
A reduced growth rate does not mean a reduced population, and that minimal population growth rate does not equate to “demographic winter.” The increase in population of the lower socio-economic groups may result in more available labor, but not in quality workmanship, given inadequate education and health services. With capacity for productivity limited, poverty among these groups may be further perpetuated.
Links between socio-economic and demographic and health outcomes exist. The National Health and Demographic Survey (NDHS) reports that poorer families had an average of six children, while richer families had two; that women between 15 to 19 years old of poor background had fertility rates ten times higher than those of wealthier background, or 130 childbirths against 12 for every 1,000 such women; and that infant mortality in poorer households was twice that in wealthier households.
The National Statistics Office’s Family Incomes and Expenditures Survey from 1985 to 2000 showed that an increase in the number of children comes with a diminishing capacity of a family to support itself, thereby limiting the family’s chances for development, security, and survival.
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