Group Name: Pulang Ina Section: Nasc 5 UV-4R

Group Members:
Kem Taghap Nikki Tenorio
Cristian Saliba Myla Peña
Fetal Clemente Ian Dominic Sipin
Kate Magtagñob Lea May Aguila

The Effect of the Growing Population of the Philippines

The overall population of the Philippines was recorded at 100.1 million people in 2014.
The Philippines’ population was growing at a rate of 1.89% per year and it has been ranked as
the 12th most populated country in the world. From 26.3 million people in 1960, it increases to
281 percent during the last 50 years which was definitely a very high increase compared to the
other countries. Since the population of the Philippines has been continually growing at a very
fast rate, it poses a negative effect on different aspects such as investment in human capital,
growth in per capita income, income equality, and the country is vulnerable to high poverty rate.

The average family size in a country greatly affects the investment in human capital.
Smaller family sizes and slower population growth enhance investment in human capital.
Smaller families are known to invest more in the human capital of their members. According to
King (1987), children in large families usually have a low performance in school and have
poorer health, lower survival probabilities, and are less developed physically. Furthermore, De
Graff et al (1996) indicated in their analysis of Philippine data that high fertility negatively
affects school participation of children 13–17 years old7, with a larger negative effect for boys

Slower population growth facilitates growth in per capita income. This most recent
empirical analysis of the relationship by Kelley and Schmidt (1995) between population change
and the level and growth of per capita income indicates that there is a large negative impact of
population change on the growth of per capita income. Bloom et al (2001) reported that if the
Philippines had achieved the demographic outcomes attained by Thailand, the cumulative
additional growth in per capita income would have been 22 percent, or 0.77 percent annually,
between 1976 and 2000.

In addition, slower population growth is less vulnerable to poverty. Other countries in

East and Southeast Asia like South Korea and China have experienced sharp reductions in
poverty as a consequence of rapid and sustained economic growth, attributable to strong
population policy. Pernia (2005) pointed that these countries have benefited from marked
increases in the share of workers relative to their young dependents, while the Philippines
continues to bear a large share of young dependents relative to workers. In addition, Thailand’s
and Indonesia’s population growth rates, which were about the same as the Philippines’ in the
early 1970s, have dropped to 1.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. At the same time, while
poverty incidence in the Philippines remains high at 34 percent, Thailand’s poverty incidence has
fallen to 9.8 percent and Indonesia’s to 18.2 percent.Thailand is reputed to be the best among the
three countries on all three counts, suggesting that good population policy combined with good
governance results in rapid economic growth and poverty reduction. On the other hand, the
experience of Indonesia, where governance and corruption ratings are worse than those of the
Philippines, implies that good population policy by itself can contribute to significant poverty
reduction (Pernia, 2005). Data for 2000 show that poverty incidence rises monotonically from
9.8 percent for a family size of one to 57.3 percent for a family size of 9+ (Pernia, 2005).

Thus, the growing population of the Philippines has a great negative effect on the human
capital investment, per capita income and poverty rate. These may affect greatly not only on the
economic aspects of the Philippines as well as on the environment. Thus, it is important for the
government to make appropriate population policies for the benefit of the country. As Malthus
have said, “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce
subsistence for man.”