The Population and Development
More dependents, More migrants
The Philippine population has grown fourfold in the last 50 years, from about 20 million in 1950 to 86.4 million today. This is one of the highest rates in the developing world, with around 2 million in Filipinos added every year. It is the 12th largest and the 8th densest population in the world (Ogena, 2004)
The country's young population has its biggest segment in the 0-14 age bracket. Half of the population is under 21 years of age. This implies a high dependency burden on the working-age population having had to support a large number of dependent family members.
In 2004, ratio was 69 persons in the dependent ages (below 15 and over 60) for every 100 members of working age (15-60). This may seem good, yet in reality, only 67 percent of the economically productive ages in 2004 were in employed, and 13 percent of them were actually unemployed.Thus, likely dependency ratio is 187 dependents per 100 employed Filipinos, or almost two dependents per one economically productive worker (Raymundo, 2004)
The extent of international migration which has contributed to the population changes in the country is somewhat yet unclear. Base on the assessment of the Technical Committee on Population and Housing Statistic, international migration still has little effect on the country's total population. The National Statistical Coordination Board and some demographers, however, find this assumption contentious and called for the conduct of further studies to establish
more sound bases for estimating international migration trends
(State of the Philippine Population Report 4)
The Philippine population has grown fourfold in the last 50 years, from about 20 million in 1950 to 86.4 million today. This is one of the highest rates in the developing world, with around 2 million in Filipinos added every year. It is the 12th largest and the 8th densest population in the world (Ogena, 2004)
The country's young population has its biggest segment in the 0-14 age bracket. Half of the population is under 21 years of age. This implies a high dependency burden on the working-age population having had to support a large number of dependent family members.
In 2004, ratio was 69 persons in the dependent ages (below 15 and over 60) for every 100 members of working age (15-60). This may seem good, yet in reality, only 67 percent of the economically productive ages in 2004 were in employed, and 13 percent of them were actually unemployed.Thus, likely dependency ratio is 187 dependents per 100 employed Filipinos, or almost two dependents per one economically productive worker (Raymundo, 2004)
The extent of international migration which has contributed to the population changes in the country is somewhat yet unclear. Base on the assessment of the Technical Committee on Population and Housing Statistic, international migration still has little effect on the country's total population. The National Statistical Coordination Board and some demographers, however, find this assumption contentious and called for the conduct of further studies to establish
more sound bases for estimating international migration trends
(State of the Philippine Population Report 4)
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