OFWs helping control population growth

By Cher Jimenez

Reporter

The exodus of Filipinos abroad not only benefits the country in terms of remittances that help keep the economy afloat but it has also cushioned the impact of a population boom, according to the Commission on Population (Popcom). “If one partner is working overseas, it is possible that the couple are practicing a longer birth spacing because the contract worker is anticipating going back to the host country. Although there is yet to have a concrete study on this, we can infer that this is what is happening,” Tomas Osias, Popcom’s executive director, told reporters. This theory on the relationship among migration, population and development would be discussed in Popcom’s incoming 4th State of the Philippine Population Report (SPPR), which will be presented in the middle of this year. The project, Popcom’s first attempt to establish the linkages between the exodus of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and the demographic bonus, gathers data from government and the private sector and analyzes the consequences of international migration from a population and development perspective. “What the Popcom provided here are inferences, and not final and definitive purviews about specific international migration issues that are also population and development concerns. We also recognize the Philippine and global demography have not looked at international migration that much, yet we believe [the report] is our small yet meaningful contribution to demography,” noted Osias. In the recently released State of the World Population Report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the issue of migration and the challenges and risks faced by both documented and undocumented workers were brought to the fore. Osias estimates that the diaspora of contract workers has eased the country’s fertility rate because of the feminization of migration since women are estimated to outnumber OFW men. “It is possible that increasing female migration by temporary contract workers and immigrants might have mitigated a population explosion. Since [women] will practice longer birth spacing and will not bear additional burdens while abroad, and since the children of Filipino permanent residents abroad are part of the populations of host countries, international migration might have somewhat managed population growth in the Philippines,” he said. With a 2.36-percent growth rate or 2 million babies being born every year, the Philippines is ranked the 12th most populous nation in the world and this could have been worse if not for the country’s labor migration policy which has been in effect for 32 years now, said the Popcom official. But while the diaspora is advantageous at keeping the fertility rate at bay, the report warns of the various social costs of labor migration not only among OFW families but in the national economy as well.

 

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