Tick-tock-tick-tock…

(First of two parts)

There was a time not so long ago when anyone who suggested that a big population was a boon to leverage, rather than a burden to cut down to size, was met with raised eyebrows, rolling eyes, and a smirk, and was deemed as either living in the clouds or just plain bonkers.

To this day, we still meet folks who advocate aggressive population control — despite critical manpower shortages now facing the likes of China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, arguing that we are nowhere near the inflection point that presaged a critical, sustained drop (near-flat growth in the case of natural-born Singaporeans) in those countries’ populations.

Not yet, but perhaps we have begun approaching such a point: the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported in November 2022 that the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) — a primary driver of population growth — fell below the pace deemed needed to sustain the current population (a threshold globally pegged at 2.1 children per woman — here in the Philippines aged 15-49 years covered by the triennial National Demographic and Health Survey, or NDHS) at 1.9 children per woman from 2.7 in 2017¹.

The situation, of course, varied across the archipelago, but this slowdown was more pronounced in urban areas (1.7 in 2002 from 2.4 in 2017) than in rural ones (2.2 from 2.9 in the same comparative years). Global convention pegs a “high fertility” rate at above five children per woman and “very low fertility” at below 1.3.²

A graph that came with that report showed a sustained, gradual TFR slowdown since at least 1993 (the NDHS began in 1968), except when it steadied at 3.0 in urban areas in the 1998 and 2003 surveys.

This downward trend picked up pace, placing TFR at 1.7 overall in 2025, consisting of 1.5 urban and 2.0 rural, according to the latest NDHS results — for 2025 — which the PSA reported on March 30.³

TIED TO ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Implying that fertility rate is inversely related to education — TFR was highest among those with some primary education at 3.1 children per woman, and declined with higher educational attainment, as well as to wealth — the poorest quintile posted 2.8, while the richest recorded 1.1.

While the TFR’s relation with the national economy is not that apparent, this rate was inversely related to economic activity in specific areas.

Note, for instance, that TFR was found lowest in Calabarzon, which hosts the bulk of the country’s main industrial zones — 61 in that region under the jurisdiction of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority⁴ — at 1.3 children per woman, followed by Metro Manila at 1.4 (tied with the Negros Island Region, or NIR).

As of 2025, Metro Manila accounted for 31.2% of the national economy, followed by Calabarzon with 14.8%, with both making up close to half of the national economy at 46%. Add Central Luzon’s 11.1% and those three regions contribute 57.1% to the national economy (if you’re interested, the newly established [in June 2024] NIR accounted for a measly 1.65%, the second-smallest regional economy)⁵. These proportions have roughly steadied across decades, since regional economic structures change very gradually, if ever at all.

Conversely, lower TFR seemed directly related to lower poverty incidence among families. As of 2021, Metro Manila recorded the lowest such reading at 2.2%, followed by the Cordillera Administrative Region’s (CAR) 6.9%, Calabarzon’s 7.2%, and Central Luzon’s 8.3%. As of 2023, Metro   Manila still had the lowest incidence at 1.1%, followed by CAR’s 4.4%, Calabarzon’s 5.3%, and Central Luzon’s 5.7%.⁶

In comparison, TFR was found highest in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) at 2.4 children per woman, followed by the Zamboanga Peninsula’s 2.3 and Caraga’s (northeastern Mindanao) 2.2.

The BARMM has long been the smallest regional economy, accounting for just 1.1% of the national economy, while the Zamboanga Peninsula made the eighth smallest contribution at 2.5% and Caraga the third-smallest at 1.7%.

In terms of poverty incidence, the BARMM had the worst reading of 28% in 2021, followed Caraga’s 25.9% and Zamboanga Peninsula’s 23.4%. BARMM still had the highest incidence at 23.5% in 2023, followed by Zamboanga Peninsula’s 24.2% (while Caraga showed vast improvement to 14.9%).

The PSA has attributed these significant TFR changes to growing use of various family planning methods and changing attitudes and behavior (partly, perhaps, as wages stagnate and prices of widely used goods and services continue to rise, thus making it more and more difficult to make ends meet; as well as increased economic opportunities for those        with higher skills and education that encourage them to build careers first before family.)

READY?
And we are not alone — more than two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants live in countries where fertility has dropped to below the replacement threshold, and the United Nations (UN) projects that global population will peak some time in the 2080s before starting a sustained decline.⁷

Religious beliefs and traditional practices have long been the whipping boy for perceived overpopulation (when the problem of inadequate resources lies more in inequitable distribution, flawed development program implementation, i.e., racked by inefficiencies, graft and corruption, etc.), even as predominantly Catholic countries like Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, and the Philippines have recorded “dramatic” TFR declines since the 1960s “despite the lack of any official support for ‘unnatural’ methods of family planning over this period of time”⁸. The Philippines, specifically, saw a population growth rate (which, again, is driven primarily by TFR) high of 4.1 in 1956 and 1957, as well as a sustained, if erratic, gradual decline since then to 0.8% in 2023⁹.

Slowing population growth may be music to Malthusian ears, but government and business planners had better start preparing for the inevitable contraction of the talent pool in decades to come. I wonder if the dropping TFR now figures in their scenario-building at all.

To be sure, some sectors have already begun feeling the pinch of a shallow bench — including healthcare, call centers, and, yes, even mainstream media, among many other industries — although this issue can be attributed to various factors, including Millennials’ and Zoomers’ changing job preferences and better pay abroad for highly skilled, experienced talent (both factors partly attributable to these youngsters’ greater global orientation and awareness, thanks to social media).

True, some foreign investors still regard our young, educated, English-proficient work force as a come-on (though not the biggest consideration per se, since we also have inadequate infrastructure, high electricity rates, plus an uncertain policy environment), but that advantage is increasingly applicable to much of Southeast Asia. Hence, this heretofore Philippine edge (we no longer have a cheap work force, by the way) is fast eroding.

Then there are the deep-seated challenges posed by our declining quality of education (not just for the sciences and mathematics, but also for humanities basics like history which provide crucial background context for national crises) and even English proficiency — worrisome trends that will weigh on the quality of our talent pool and which could negate any demographic dividend we still hope to ride on, hence, eroding our national competitiveness vs. our rivals for foreign investments.

So, add to all those considerations these recent signs of a slowing fertility rate, which has fallen below what is deemed needed to sustain the current population.

To be sure, we should be reaping some benefits from a falling TFR.

“As fertility declines, the proportion of children in the population falls, and the proportion of the population of working age increases, resulting in a lower dependency ratio,” says the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which defined that ratio as the number children and older persons per 100 persons of working age.

“Provided jobs are available for the increasing population of working age, a country can reap the benefits of increased production and lower costs associated with the decreasing proportion of dependents,” it added.

“This ‘demographic bonus’ can, thus, contribute significantly to economic growth and poverty reduction.”

But this advantage erodes as fertility continues its decline over the long term, leading to a continuous decline in proportion of the working-age segment and a corresponding steady increase in the elderly.

(To be concluded on May 28.)

¹ https://tinyurl.com/23o2j6yc

²https://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/methodology_sheets/demographics/total_fertility_rate.pdf

³ https://tinyurl.com/295efzah

⁴ https://tinyurl.com/25vxd4bj

⁵ https://tinyurl.com/2d58jeny

⁶https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/phdsd/2023%20FY%20Official%20Poverty%20Statistics%20Publication_15August2024.pdf

⁷ https://tinyurl.com/29d73nxs

⁸ https://tinyurl.com/29jpp38q

⁹ https://tinyurl.com/29qs64gq

Wilfredo G. Reyes was editor-in-chief of BusinessWorld from 2020 through 2023.