7.29.2005

women and the greater metropolitan region



I know I said I'd post something about Subic's development but I had to deal with this to predicate that future post. (Warning: stats discussion ahead)

A little more tooling around the Census website led me to year 2000 stats for the regions neighboring Metro Manila: Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.

While the NCR is experiencing a slowdown in growth (see previous post), these two regions are experiencing tremendous growth and rank 1st and 3rd by gross population size (NCR is 2nd). Taken together, these 3 regions hold over 30 million people, over a third of the nation's total. By the 2000 census, the tally was:


Southern Tagalog | 11,793,655
Metro Manila | 9,932,560
Central Luzon | 8,030,945

As the charts above show, the growth is trending upward. Does this negate my previous post? Not really.

Fertility rates are still high (Central Luzon at 2.57, NCR at 2.10 (the sub-replacement rate) and Southern Tagalog at 2.69) but significantly, family sizes are dropping:

Southern Tagalog | 4.88 persons (1995= 4.89)
Metro Manila | 4.63 persons (1995= 4.74)
Central Luzon | 4.91 persons (1995= 5.07)

Also, using Southern Tagalog as an example, the closer a province is to Metro Manila, the lower its fertility rate:



The other key trend is that the fertility rate for women ages 20-24 (traditionally the most reproductive age) in the Southern Tagalog provinces are all below 2.1, with the peak just at 1.6 (Occ. Mindoro). In the 25-29 age range, Cavite, Rizal, Batangas, Laguna and Lucena City all had birth rates below replenishment.

On average, the closer a woman is to Metro Manila, the less children she will have.

4 comments:

Ian said...

So does it mean that areas surrounding metro manila are bound to be urbanize?

Urbano dela Cruz said...

Most of them are already classified as highly urbanized. GMA has also spoken of a development strategy for central luzon + calabarzon, anchored on what she calls "the urban beltway" (see my previous post).

Ian said...

ok. thanks.

Urbano dela Cruz said...

Good question. I don't have an authoritative answer. The 1999 survey placed the number of OFWs at 1.5M. It would have at least doubled by now. And that number does not count the undocumented and migrants who have settled in other countries (with their children and grandchildren) but still count themselves as ethnically pinoy. 9M might be a good ballpark.

+82M here so 90-92 is a good range.

Now there's a good long term question: beyond remittances, what does having 9-10M filipinos abroad mean for the country? how is this shaping the built environment back home? how is it shaping our culture and sense of self?

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