Dexter Jay C.

Domingo 2011-
51190

Paper 1

As someone who was born in the 90s and who grew up in the 2000s, my
generation has been constantly indoctrinated in school that the population and its
rate of growth must be kept to a minimum as a large population is the major cause of
poverty in our country. Honestly, as someone who was pedestrian in the discipline of
economics I did not dare question this idea, but by reading some papers on the
analysis of the correlation of population size and the country’s economy I was able
to have some light on the reality of the idea and have an internal argument on the
said topic.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data shows that as of July 2019, that
there is a 94.6% employment rate which shows around 4% increase since the year
2000. The data also shows that there are around 64 million working age Filipinos
while there are 40 million who are of the dependent population. Which means that
six out of 10 Filipinos are part of the working force, and thus contributors to the
country’s economic success.

In Fumitaka Furuoka’s Population Growth and Economic Development: Empirical

Evidence from the Philippines he discussed the possible correlation and impact of
population in a country’s economic development, further imploring that for
industrialized/developed countries, the decreasing population has brought about a
strain in the pension system of these countries. For developing countries especially
in Asia, it was found out that the rapid population growth in these countries has
“potential” in slowing down the socioeconomic growth of these countries especially
when the dependency ratio increases that the working force may not be able to
support both the young and the elderly. However, in developing countries such as
the Philippines it is seen that high population and economic performance have
positive correlation as they invite competition amongst businesses thus increasing
the country’s market potential.
 Furuoka further discussed that the negative connotation that high population
growth rates might bring overpopulation was a thing of the past as it was theorized
and widely popularized by Thomas Malthus in 1798. According to Dawson and Tiffin
(1998), per capita growth is neither caused nor impacted by population growth. This
hypothesis implies that economic growth (population times per capita GDP) is
positively impacted by high population growths.

On the other hand, Furuoka also floated the hypothesis of Klasen and Lawson
(2007) that regression on population growth and per capita GDP has a negative
correlation. They further elaborated that the relative contribution of the population
creates a tremendous impact on the economic development of a country, and the
result of their research using cross-country data and panel data has concluded that
rapid population growth has adverse impact on the economy.

The result of Furuoka’s study however resulted to the conclusion that economic
development has brought about the increase in population in the Philippines and not
the other way around. This implies that the economic growth is not dependent to the
rate of population growth, which begs us the question: Is there a need to regulate
the population of the country?

According to Coale and Hoover (1958) in their paper Population, Growth, And
Economic Development in Low Income Countries, a period of two to three decades
of no substantial population growth does not decrease the work force of a country
over the said period. This gives the country the ability to invest more and produce
more.

There are also other factors to consider in regulating the population of the
Philippines, and first and foremost is that of religion as it plays a major factor in
passing laws related to population in our country. Given that majority of Filipinos are
Catholics, it is inculcated to us by our religious leaders that “life” is a gift from God
and therefore should not be mitigated through unnatural means. Another factor is the
social stigma of discussing sex as a subject specially amongst teens. I wouldn’t dare
assume but basing only on my eye test and limited knowledge, the ignorance and
inability of a Filipino household to discuss sex and its consequences has brought us
 issues of teenage pregnancy and increased cases of sexually transmitted diseases
amongst others. The role of the church in stopping the addition of the Sex Education
subject in the curriculum has not helped the cause of the government to stop such
societal issues.

Personally, given the arguments above, I agree that the population must be
mitigated in the Philippines not only to boost our economy’s stability but to decrease
the incidence of social problems that I stated beforehand.

References
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.popcom.gov.ph/rm

(2019, October 25). Retrieved from http://www.psa.gov.ph/

FuRuoka, F. (2010). Population growth and economic development: Empirical evidence

from the Philippines. Philippine Journal of Development.

Hoover, A. J. (1958). POPULATION, GROWTH, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN

LOW INCOME COUNTRIES. Princeton University Press, 389.

Peterson, E. W. (2017). The Role of Population in Economic Growth. Sage Open, 1-15.