Former President Rodrigo Duterte (on screens) of the Philippines addresses the UN General Assembly’s 76th session last year. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Barry Mirkin
DAVAO CITY, Philippines, Aug 3 2022 (IPS)

With the national election and transfer of power in the Philippines from outgoing President Duterte to incoming President Marcos Jr. in July 2022, it seems an appropriate time to briefly take stock of the country’s current demographic situation, as well as recent related developments.

According to the biennial global estimates and projections of world population issued by the United Nations Population Division in 2022, the Philippines population climbed to 114 million by mid-2021.

A global milestone will be achieved in November 2022, when world population is expected to breach the 8 billion mark. Population projections foresee that by 2050, the rise in world population will be concentrated in eight countries, one of which is the Philippines.

The country’s total fertility continues its gradual decline, falling to 2.5 births per woman in 2021. Some staggering statistics for the Philippines reveal that from the years 2004 to 2020, 36 in every 1,000 Filipino girls aged 15 to 19 years had already given birth.

A UNFPA staff member walks to a damaged health centre in General Santos on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Credit: UNFPA Philippines

Furthermore, during that period, one-half of all births were unintended. In comparison, world fertility is estimated at 2.3 births per woman and 1.5 births per woman in South-East Asia, of which the Philippines is part.

Abortion remains illegal in the Philippines, despite the over one million illegal and unsafe procedures estimated to be carried out annually. Anyone undergoing or performing an abortion risks up to six years in prison. It is the only country in the world, other than the Vatican where abortion remains illegal under any grounds.

While the Philippines is a global outlier concerning its stance on abortion, it should be noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 struck down Roe versus Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States and thus creating a firestorm of protests.

As a consequence, a number of state governments are seeking to severely restrict abortion access.

In one of the few recent legislative successes regarding population, the Philippine Parliament in 2021 raised the legal age of sexual consent from 12 years, the lowest in Asia to 16 years. Nevertheless, the law contains a “Romeo and Juliet exemption” to protect younger lovers.

Other Parliamentary developments have proven to be unsuccessful. For example, in a country wrought with conservative values and a powerful Church, divorce continues to be illegal, except for the minority Muslim population (eight per cent of the total population), despite a number of attempts over the years to legalize divorce.

Annulment, an option to divorce can take up to four years, may only be granted on narrow legal grounds and at great financial expense. A Civil Partnership Bill has recently been introduced in Parliament, as a means of affording some legal protections to gay couples in a country that forbids same-sex couples from marrying. The bill, however, faces stiff Parliamentary opposition.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there were a record number of repatriated overseas Filipinos (OFWs), some 792,000 in 2020, due to COVID-related lockdowns and restrictions.

Under this program administered by the Philippine government, Filpinos work abroad on fixed-term contracts, usually in the oil-exporting countries of the Arab Region and generally for periods of one to two years, but with the possibility of renewal.

On a more positive note, the Filipino diaspora, i.e., those living and working abroad in 2021, estimated at between 10 to 12 million, remitted US$ 37 billion to the Philippines, a 5 per cent increase from the previous year.

The Philippines benefitted directly from the job creation and wage gains in the United States, which accounted for almost 40 per cent of remittance receipts. Other major remittance sources were Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

The top four global remittance recipients are India, Mexico, China and the Philippines, The United States has been the major source of global remittance outflows, amounting to US$ 75 billion in 2021.

Despite the ravages of the global COVID pandemic, remittances have proven to be highly resilient, as well as a major contributor to Philippine economic growth. According to World Bank projections, despite the ravages and uncertainty of the Ukraine crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, remittance flows to low and middle-income countries are expected to grow by four per cent in 2022.

Always a source of nurses for other nations, the significant exodus of nurses from the Philippines, amid the coronavirus pandemic has climbed, as 25 per cent more Filipino nurses migrated to the United States during the first nine months of 2021 than during the same period in 2020.

Based on the recent increases in COVID cases in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, the departure of Filipino nurses is likely to continue and grow.

Given the country’s current demographic trends and future population projections, combined with the various failed legislative initiatives, the Philippines is unlikely to experience major demographic changes, at least in the near term.

In other words, same old, same old.

Barry Mirkin is former chief of the Population Policy Section of the United Nations Population Division.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Barry Mirkin and Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Apr 9 2016 (IPS)

Regardless of whether they are called fragile, failed, or failing states, scores of countries around the globe are plagued by overwhelming problems with few solutions in sight. Moreover, the instability and dire straits of these countries are spilling across national borders, destabilizing neighboring countries and regions, while posing enormous challenges for international organizations and donors.

While lists of failing states may differ, they include for the most part, the same set of countries. In brief, failing states are unable to provide fundamental societal requirements and basic services to their citizens such as health, education, housing, welfare, employment, security, justice, governance and human rights.

Among the various key factors that can contribute to state failure are poverty, corruption, ineffective governance, crime, violence, forced displacement and sectarian and ethnic conflict. Destabilizing interventions and aggression from abroad are also a part of this toxic mix.

For purposes of this analysis the top 25 states, or the F25 countries, on the 2015 Fragile States Index (FSI) of the Fund for Peace are considered. The index is based on twelve social, economic and political indicators, including demographic pressures, poverty and economic decline, state legitimacy, security, human rights, rule of law, fractionalized elites and external intervention.

Based on their FSI scores, states are grouped into one of twelve categories ranging from Very High Alert to Very Sustainable. Four of the F25 countries – South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic and Sudan – are in the Very High Alert category. Twelve of the F25 are in the subsequent High Alert category, including the war-torn countries of Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the remaining nine countries are in the Alert category.

Three-fourths of the F25 countries are in Africa, and all except Libya in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the five Asian countries, four of them, namely, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are racked by protracted violent armed conflict. The remaining country, Haiti, is the sole failing state in the western hemisphere.

The large majority of the F25 countries – 60 percent – have remained at the highest levels of the FSI for years. For example, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen have been among the top ten highest countries on the index since its inception in 2005.

Population estimates for the F25 countries show considerable variation (Figure 1). More than half of F25 countries have populations under 20 million and nine have populations between 20 and 99 million. By far, the most populous F25 countries are Nigeria and Pakistan at 182 and 189 million, respectively.

Source: United Nations Population Division and the Fund for Peace.

In the recent past the total population of the F25 countries was considerably smaller than that of developed countries. In 1980, for example, the combined population of the F25 countries was about one-third the size of the population of developed countries (Figure 2). The total population of the F25 is currently about three-quarters the size of developed countries.

Source: United Nations Population Division.

Due to substantially higher demographic growth, by a factor of ten, the combined population of the F25 countries is expected to overtake that of developed countries in little more than a decade. By mid-century, the population of the F25 countries is projected to be 50 percent larger than developed countries, 1.9 and 1.3 billion, respectively.

The stark difference in the pace of demographic change between these two groups of countries is illustrated by comparing the populations of Nigeria and the United States. Currently the U.S. population is nearly twice as large as Nigeria’s, 322 and 182 million, respectively.

However, as Nigeria’s current demographic growth is more than triple that of the U.S., Nigeria is projected to overtake the U.S. by mid-century, when Nigeria will have the third largest population in the world, after India and China.

Although the F25 countries have relatively high mortality, with life expectancies at birth below the global average and the majority under 60 years, their rapid population growth is due to high birth rates. Among the F25 countries fertility is usually at least four births per women.

Moreover, some of the world’s highest fertility is observed in F25 countries, such as Niger (7.6 births per woman), Somalia (6.6), Democratic Republic of the Congo (6.2) and Nigeria (5.7).

The populations of the F25 countries are also young. In most instances, half of the population is below the age of 18 years. In some of the countries median ages are even lower, such as Niger (14.8 years), Uganda (15.9) and Somalia (16.5).

The F25 countries are the largest generator of refugees. In mid-2015, the top five sources of refugees under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), representing more than 60 percent of the 15 million refugees, were: Syria (4.2 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million), Somalia (1.1 million), South Sudan (0.7 million) and Sudan (0.6 million).

A similar picture emerges with regard to internally displaced persons (IDPs). Of the 34 million IDPs in mid-2015 protected or assisted by UNHCR 70 percent were resident in the F25 countries, with just four of them accounting for nearly half of all IPDs: Syria (7.6 million), Iraq (4.0 million), Sudan (2.3 million) and South Sudan (1.6 million).

In addition to refugees and asylum seekers, high unemployment induces significant movements of unauthorized migrants to wealthier nations. Many youth, especially males, from countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Nigeria and Pakistan are willing to undertake risky and costly trips with smugglers across land and sea to reach their desired destinations.

Desperate to escape war or driven by the hopes of a better life, more than 1 million refugees and economic migrants, an unprecedented number, illegally crossed the borders into Europe last year. Another 3,800, a third of them children, died while crossing the Mediterranean in a vain attempt to reach Europe, making it the deadliest year on record for such deaths.

The international refugee regime or system, which is based on the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Additional Protocol and implemented by the UNHCR, is being overwhelmed and proving inadequate in dealing with refugees and asylum seekers from failing states. Yet, it is feared that attempts to revise the current refugee regime will undermine rather than improve it.

Such is the case with an agreement struck between the European Union (EU) and Turkey in March 2016. Those migrants who illegally enter Greece from Turkey after March 20 will be deported back to Turkey. In exchange the EU will resettle one Syrian from a camp in Turkey for each Syrian who took an irregular route to Greece, with the maximum number capped at 72,000. Migrants currently in Greece could eventually be moved to other parts of the European Union, if they qualify for asylum.

The migration agreement also calls for Turkey to receive some $6.6 billion from the EU to assist with refugees in Turkey. Also promised is visa-free travel for Turkish citizens in most of Europe by mid-2016, if certain conditions are met, as well as the eventual resumption of negotiations with Turkey on EU membership.

A failing state is not a new phenomenon. In the past, however, the repercussions of a failing state were largely contained within its national borders. With an increasingly interconnected, globalized and mobile world, a failing state has disastrous consequences not only for its own inhabitants, but also for neighboring countries, as well as distant nations as has become disturbingly evident in recent years.

In particular, the surge in the numbers and populations of failing states poses serious dangers to world economic growth, development efforts and international security. The proliferation of failing states creates conditions and breeding grounds under which repressive kleptocracies, transnational crime, external incursions, armed extremists and terrorist groups can thrive and expand, resulting in among other things potential costly and perilous quagmires for foreign powers and regional and international organizations that opt to intervene.

The demographic realities of failing states can no longer be dismissed or postponed by political pronouncements, lofty goals or future promises. In addition to developmental issues such as poverty, employment, health, security, governance and political legitimacy, the international community needs to effectively address the faltering global refugee system and the vexing problem of illegal immigration, including smuggling and human trafficking.

Admittedly, some solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of failing states are being pursued. National, regional and international efforts are underway to improve the lot of failing states.

Those efforts encompass national dialogues, encouraging peace, reconciliation and state building, holding fair and peaceful elections, creating national priorities and accountability, monitoring specific developmental objectives and promoting economic resilience. Such initiatives require commitments of substantial resources and long-term support from development partners to address critical issues including security, governance, food, water, health, education, housing, equality, gender, employment and environment.

That no country has yet graduated from being considered a fragile state to a stable one provides little encouragement or optimism that the efforts currently underway will prove sufficient to solve the overwhelming problems of failing states. Clearly, radically new, innovative and comprehensive initiatives are needed in order for countries to transition from a failing to a stable state.

(End)

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By Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 2014 (IPS)

As the world marks the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the famous Berlin Wall leading to the reunification of the country and the end of the cold war, a little noted event occurred nearly two decades before the fall that ushered in a trend having profound consequences for the future of Germany as well as for Europe:  German births declined below deaths.

During the 20^th century, except for a few years during the two world wars, the annual number of births exceeded deaths in Germany up until 1972. For every year since that fateful date, births have never exceeded deaths (Figure 1).

Source: Germany official statistics

The historic demographic turnaround in Germany was not due to increasing deaths. On the contrary, the numbers of deaths during the 1970s and 1980s were decreasing and German life expectancies at birth increased by several years for both males and females over the period.

Actually, Germany’s demographic turnaround was the result of declining births as the country’s fertility rate fell below the replacement level.

For nearly 40 years Germany’s fertility has hovered around 1.4 births per women, or a third less than the replacement level of about two births per woman.

Despite the sustained negative rate of natural increase, Germany’s population remained close to 80 million largely due to international migration.

At the time of reunification in 1990, Germany’s population numbered slightly more than 80 million. However, with large influxes of immigrants in the early 1990s, Germany’s population continued to grow and peaked at almost 84 million about a decade ago. Since then, the country’s population has fallen slightly to about 83 million.

While admittedly the future remains uncertain, the likely paths for Germany’s key demographic components over the coming decades appear reasonably evident. First, mortality rates are expected to remain low as well as improve. Consequently, German life expectancies at birth are expected to increase by six years by mid-century, reaching 83 and 88 years for males and females, respectively.

Second, while fertility may increase somewhat from its current level of 1.4 births per woman, among the lowest in Europe, few expect that it will return to the replacement level any time soon. Approximately 20 percent of the women eventually remain childless and few couples are choosing to have more than two children. Recent population projections anticipate fertility likely increasing to 1.6 births by mid-century and 1.8 births by the century’s close.

Third, in contrast to fertility and mortality, future levels of international migration for Germany are considerably more volatile and therefore difficult to anticipate. The German government currently encourages immigration to address long-term demographic concerns as well as short-term labor force shortages.

Recently released figures for 2013 indicate the highest level of immigration to Germany in 20 years, yielding a net immigration of 437,000 or more than double the number of excess deaths over births.

While the future population size of Germany could follow a number of possible scenarios, the overall conclusion of most population projections is the same: a smaller German population in the future. For example, if fertility and life expectancies increased slightly and net migration levels were moderate, Germany’s current population of 83 million would decline to slightly below 73 million by mid-century.

However, if Germany’s current low fertility were to remain unchanged, its projected population in 2050 would be 69 million.

If some how German fertility rose steadily back to the replacement level by 2050, its population size at that time would still be a couple million less than today. Aside from large-scale immigration, Germany’s fertility would need to increase rapidly to avoid a smaller future population.

Even if fertility were to rise instantly and remain at the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman – an unlikely yet instructive scenario – Germany’s population would change little, hovering around 84 million at mid-century.

Germany’s future population is also being impacted by immigration, which is offsetting declines due to negative natural population change as well as the sizeable numbers leaving Germany. If immigration were to cease, the decline in Germany’s population would even be greater than noted above, falling to 67 million by 2050.

In addition to being less populous in the future, Germany’s population will be decidedly older. Germany’s current median age of 46 years – the world’s second highest after Japan – is expected to increase to 51 years by 2050. Also, the proportion of the German population aged 65 years and older is projected to increase from a fifth to more than a third.

Consequently, Germany’s potential support ratio is expected to fall to half its current level by mid-century, declining from about 3 to 1.5 persons aged 20 to 64 years per person 65 years or older.

An evident consequence of Germany’s ageing population is the raising of its retirement age incrementally from 65 to 67 years. Also, the proportion of the population aged 55 to 64 years who are in the work force has risen to 62 percent from 39 percent in 2002.

A further consequence of Germany’s demographics is its perception as a nation. Twenty-five years ago, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared that Germany “is not and can never be an immigration country”. Clearly, that is no longer the case.

Germany now hosts nearly 10 million immigrants or 12 percent of its population. Also, recently Germany has become the second most popular immigration destination after the United States, overtaking Canada and Australia.

Only two countries have more immigrants than Germany: Russia and the United States. Most immigrants to Germany come from other European countries, particularly from Italy, Poland, Russia and Turkey.

Despite those demographic changes, Chancellor Angela Merkel has concluded that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have “utterly failed.” Nevertheless, recognising Germany’s ageing and declining population, she has also made clear that immigrants are welcome in Germany and the nation needs immigrants, but mainly from other European countries.

The changing demographics also have consequences for the relative population standing of European countries. After the Russian Federation with a population of 144 million, Germany’s population of 83 million is the largest population in Europe, followed by France and the United Kingdom at 63 and 62 million, respectively.

By mid-century, however, differential rates of demographic growth are expected to result in Germany’s population falling to fourth place, below the populations of both France and the United Kingdom.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

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