IF the minimum wage nationwide is at par with the country’s poverty threshold, the Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) said the Philippines might have a better chance of attaining the demographic dividend.
On the sidelines of the State of the Population report launch on Wednesday, Popcom Executive Director and Undersecretary Juan Antonio Perez III told the BusinessMirror that ideally, the country should adopt a living wage, which is about P15,000 a month.
However, given the consequences of such a move, one of which is inflation, it may be a low hanging fruit to adjust minimum wages to at least be at par with the poverty threshold which was pegged at P12,082 a month in the first half of 2021 by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
“I’m no economist but the problem is the minimum wage is below the poverty threshold set by the PSA. The food sustainability threshold is P8,000 that is for Filipinos to be able to eat, poverty [threshold] is P12,000, and a living wage is higher than that so we should be working toward it. We need a new wage policy,” Perez told the BusinessMirror.
Perez said the Philippines already had the “right numbers” to achieve the demographic dividend except for the living wage.
He earlier explained that the three conditions in reaping the demographic dividend include the reduction of the total fertility rate (TFR). The country’s total fertility rate is now at 1.8 children per woman, which is an achievement from 2.7 five years ago.
The two conditions are that the majority of the population is of working age while the third is having a dependency ratio of 50 percent. In terms of the working age population, Perez said there is a need to improve the employment among women and the youth.
However, in terms of the dependency ratio, Perez said it is not enough to use the dependency ratio and that the country should use the support ratio. He said the dependency is “just numbers” as opposed to the support ratio.
Perez explained that the support ratio matches “effective workers with consumers and coming up with the regional wage policy” that can approximate the wages at the national level.
“I know trickle down is the principle but this is not trickle down. We are asking for an improvement from the bottom up so I hope there is a way to meet in the middle where you continue to encourage investment and grow the economy,” Perez said.
“Hopefully, the economy grows with increasing equity in terms of wage income. That is the key to the demographic dividend, it’s a key to reducing the gap between the regions,” he added.
Unwanted pregnancies
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 2022 State of the World Population report (SWOP) more than half or 51 percent of pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended.
The Philippines ranked 56th among 150 countries in terms of the number of unintended pregnancies at 71 per 1,000 women annually.
However, Perez said during the pandemic, the country was able to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. This was mainly due to the reduction in the number of births.
Perez estimated that the country was able to avert 200,000 unintended pregnancies from happening. He attributed this to the efforts of local government units (LGUs), especially health workers who were willing to provide services amid the lockdowns.
He recounted in his presentation on Wednesday the effort of a health worker who received a call from a woman in need of injectable. The health worker agreed to provide the service by meeting the woman and administering the dose at a nearby convenience store.
Nonetheless, Perez said, Popcom estimates there are still about 300,000 unintended pregnancies in the country and 150,000 of these pregnancies involve adolescents.
Of the 150,000, some 60,000 unintended pregnancies are among adolescents below the age of 18.
“So that is still the story of adolescents and women in this country, still working toward a better life, working toward more choices and agency,” Perez said in his speech.
Globally, the report stated, there are roughly 121 million unintended pregnancies annually. Some 257 million women worldwide want to avoid pregnancy but are not using safe and modern methods of contraception.
In 47 countries, UNFPA said some 40 percent of sexually active women were not using any contraceptive methods to avoid pregnancy. This becomes a major challenge given that nearly a quarter of women were not able to say “no” to sex.
The report added that over 60 percent of unintended pregnancies and almost 30 percent of all pregnancies end in an abortion. UNFPA said 45 percent of all abortions globally are considered unsafe.
These unsafe abortions cause the hospitalization of 7 million women annually and 5 percent to 13 percent of all maternal deaths. This made abortion one of the leading causes of maternal deaths globally.