By PressOne.PH Business
The Duterte’s administration’s push to strengthen birth control policies will lead to a “fast-paced” decline in fertility rates in the Philippines, slowing population growth over the next six years, the government reported on Monday.
But majority of Filipinos will remain part of a higher-earning workforce as the economy enters the upper-middle income segment as early as next year. This will support economic activity, while helping financially sustain a small number of Filipino elderly.
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) estimates showed the Philippine population would likely hit 115.38 million by July 2025, up from 100.98 million in July 2015.
The number also represented an increase from the projected 107.29 million Filipinos as of last July 2019. The official census is recorded every five years, with the next round scheduled next year.
The estimates were uploaded to the PSA website early Monday morning until noon, but was abruptly taken down in the afternoon. No explanation was given as to why the data was removed from the site.
While the population will continue to increase, it will do so at a slower pace. From 2016 to 2020, average population growth is likely to ease to 1.5 percent, before further slowing down to 1.2 percent in the next five years.
This will be slower than the 1.7 percent recorded from 2011 to 2015 and 1.9 percent during the first 10 years of the millennium.
“The fast-paced decline,” as PSA described in the annex of the report, will be realized if government policies, “including reproductive health,” get a boost.
The agency added that based on its estimates, the country will lower its fertility rate to 2.1 births per woman by 2025, the replacement level necessary to keep the population stable while ensuring that economic wealth is preserved.
As of 2017, the fertility rate in the Philippines stood at 2.7 births per woman.
Next to Indonesia, the Philippines is the most populated country in Southeast Asia, which, government officials claim, has constrained economic resources and opportunities, and has hindered Filipino families from rising above poverty.
As part of its medium-term development plan, the Duterte government has vowed to slow population growth by implementing birth-control policies under the Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act.
The law, enacted in 2013, was challenged by pro-life groups before the high court, which declared it not unconstitutional in 2014, but banned the government from funding contraceptives unless it proved to the magistrates that the products were not abortifacients. Several provisions were also nullified.
According to PSA data, 63.4 percent of the population will remain in the workforce, officially defined as people aged 15 to 64. Around 4.7 percent will be aged 65 and up.
By location, a total of 14.5 million will be in Metro Manila. This will represent 12.6 percent of the population, slightly down from 12.8 percent in 2015.