LAST week, I discussed the Philippines’ barely above replacement fertility rate. As of 2017, the country had a fertility rate of 2.7 children per woman.
Assuming that this number is accurate and holds true for 2021, we are very close to dropping below the replacement level, and when that happens, we can expect the country to begin aging.
Fortunately, this is a global trend, and we can take certain lessons from other aging countries. For starters, we should look at our Asian neighbors, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. These are all aging countries, with Singapore at 1.18, Taiwan at 1.20 and Japan at 1.36.
These countries have dealt with aging demographics by focusing on capital-intensive industries to sustain their economy, and keep their population relatively satisfied. They used automation to address labor shortages, and targeted policies to subsidize certain industries.
The problem with this approach is that it needs a large pool of STEM graduates plus the East Asian culture of heavy communitarianism, both of which the Philippines does not have. We have a lot of medical professionals and we have a lot of seafarers. Engineers and technicians who can sustain semiconductor factories, advance fabrication and R&D, are not something we have.
Another example that we can look at are Western countries. They have dealt with aging demographics through mass immigration. They did this partly for political and ideological reasons, but they also did this to sustain consumer demand. The results are countries whose native populations are projected to become minorities sometime in the future. Personally, I don’t like the Western solution to demographic aging.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are plenty of other developing countries with declining birth rates, and they have dealt with this problem through pro-natal policies, with mixed results. Hungary, for example, rose by 2.19 percent in 2017 to 1.41 births per woman. In 2020, it’s now around 1.520. It’s not above replacement level but it’s something.
These are the Philippines’ options if, or rather when, we are faced with the threat of aging demographics./PN
