Go Pinoys, multiply (1)

While the government worries about a population explosion, the rest of the world is apprehensive over the declining birth rate and the eventual aging of Filipinos.

The Filipino diaspora made many nations dependent on Pinoys whose skills and attitude towards work are beyond compare.

A Bloomberg report said the “next big demographic jolt is coming in a country whose human capital keeps essential portions of the global economy afloat,” referring to the Philippines.

It said the impact from a slowdown in Filipino fertility “will be felt everywhere from London hospital wards and Los Angeles wharves to dinner tables across the Middle East.”

The country is in a demographic sweet spot, that is, when majority of the population are of working age but eventually, as the country progresses, it may suffer a declining birth rate and a period of retirement which is not replaced by new workers.

That is how the labor problems of most nations started, which will be more pronounced for the country as many Filipinos take the option of working overseas.

“Worries about a baby drought and decades-later silver tsunami of too many old people are for societies that have already grown rich. They are tomorrow’s problems,” according to the report.

Pressure from work and the family-planning drive had reduced the average number of children to about two from five previously.

Consistent and pronounced reductions in the size of families were key characteristics of the rapid economic take-off enjoyed by neighbors South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China.

The report said that with smaller families, “Filipinos can budget their money, give a better education to their kids, provide sufficient financial support and nutrition. They are taking care not just of their kids, but of their lives.”

The trade-off, however, would be a declining population which for the world labor market would be a slow-burning challenge.

The report indicated that Filipinos perform critical, “though often underappreciated, roles in social and economic systems far from home. This isn’t simply about agencies in Hong Kong and Singapore having enough domestic helpers to supply middle-class households. Nor is it just guys working construction in the Middle East.”

It will be a problem for more complex labor markets.

“Healthcare systems in the United States and Europe have come to rely on nurses from the Philippines; recruiters’ fan out to colleges and clinics, offering spotting fees into the thousands of dollars for referrals of friends and colleagues,” according to the report.

It added that the Philippines supplies about a quarter of the seafarers that keep container vessels on the seas.

Until recently, the nation has been a very youthful standout in a region getting old quickly.

Yet urbanization had resulted in the choice for more compact families.

“The urban professional class has needed little convincing that fewer offspring were desirable; they simply mirrored the inclinations of their cohorts in other upand-coming economies,” according to the report.

Throw into the equation the increasing role of women in the workplace and that means pressure to reduce childbirth.

“A broader milestone for women came in 2012 with the passage of a bill that lifted many restrictions on the use and availability of contraception. Fought doggedly by religious conservatives, the law was a big win for women,” the report pointed out.

Being part of the economic transformation means less time as housewives.

“Worries about a baby drought and decadeslater silver tsunami of too many old people are for societies that have already grown rich.

“The diaspora indicated that many nations had become dependent on Filipinos whose skills and attitude towards work are beyond compare.

(To be continued)