THEORIES AND

PRINCIPLES OF
DEMOGRAPHY
An Overview of Population
Dynamics
 DEMOGRAPHY
Demography comes from the Greek root demos, which means
people, and was coined in 1855 by Achille Guillard, who used it in
the title of his book Elements de Statistique Humaine ou
Démographie Comparée
• the mathematical knowledge of populations, their general
movements, and their physical, civil, intellectual and moral

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT? state”

It deals with so many personally relevant topics. Nearly all the

major events of people’s lives have demographic implications:
birth, schooling, marriage, occupational choices, childbearing,
retirement, and death
 • When couples are asked why they have children, their
answers are almost always about their feelings.
• For most, having a child is the symbol of a successful
union. It also ensures that the family will have a
successor generation that will continue its name.
• However, there are few who worry how much strain a
child can bring to the household as he/she “competes”
for the parents’ attention and how much energy the
family needs to shower its love to an additional
will themember.
child be an economic asset or burden to the family?
• Rural communities often welcome an extra hand to help
in crop cultivation, particularly during the planting and
harvesting seasons.
• The poorer districts of urban centers also tend to have
families with more children because the success of their
“small family business” depends on how many of their
members can be hawking their wares in the streets
• Urbanized, educated and professional families with two
income, however, desire just one or two progenies.
• These families also have their sights on long-term
savings plan. They set aside significant parts of their
incomes for their retirement, health care and the future
education of their children
• Rural families view multiple children and large kinship
networks as critical investments

• Urban families, however, may not have same kinship

network anymore because couples live on their own,
or because they move out of the farmland. It is usually
the basic family unit that is left to deal with lifes’
challenges on its own.
 • These differing versions of family life determine the
economic and social policies that countries craft
regarding their respective populations
• Countries in the “less developed regions of the world”
that rely on agriculture tend to maintain high levels of
population growth
• Urban populations have grown, but not necessarily
because families are having more children. It is rather
the combination of natural outcome of significant
migration to the cities by people seeking work in the
“more modern” sectors of the society.

• International migration also plays a part. Today, 191

million people live in countries other than their own, and
the United Nations projects that over 2.2 million will
move from the developing world to the First World
countries.
POPULATI
ON
GROWTH
AND
 Population Growth
• the increase in the number of humans on Earth
• For most of human history our population size was
relatively stable. But with innovation and
industrialization, energy, food, water, and
medical care became more available and reliable.
• Consequently, global human population rapidly
increased, and continues to do so, with dramatic
impacts on global climate and ecosystems.
• We will need technological and social innovation to
help us support the world’s population as we adapt to
and mitigate climate and environmental changes.
• Development planners see urbanization and
industrialization as indicators of a developing society,
but disagree on the role of population growth or
decline in modernization
• In 1978, British scholar, Thomas Malthus, warned in
his “An Essay on the Principle of Population” that
population growth will inevitably exhaust food
supply by the middle of the 19th century
• It was revived in the late 1960's when American
biologist Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife Anne, wrote
“The Population Bomb”, which argued that
overpopulation in the 1970's and 1980's will bring about
global environmental disasters that would lead to
food shortage and mass starvation.
• Their recommendations ranged from the bizarre
(chemical castration) to the policy-oriented (taxing an
additional child and luxury taxes in child-related
products) to monetary incentives (paying off men
who would agree to be sterilized after two children) to
institution building (a powerful Department of
• By limiting the population, vital resources could be
Population and Environment)
used for economic progress and not be diverted and
wasted to feeding more mouths
• This argument became the basis for government
population control programs worldwide.
• In the mid-20th century, the Philippines, China and India
sought to lower birth rate on the belief that the
expansion of family members would lead to a crisis in
resources, which in return may result in widespread
poverty, mass hunger and political instability.
• As early as 1958, the American policy journal, Foreign
Affairs, had already advocated “contraception and
sterilization” as the practical solutions to global
economic, social and political problems.
• Advocates of population control contend for universal
access to reproductive technologies (eg. condoms, pills,
abortion and vasectomy) and more importantly, giving
women right to choose whether to have children or not.
• Politics determined these “birth control” programs.
Developed countries justify their support for population
control in developing countries by depicting the latter as
conservative societies.
Examples
• Population experts blamed the “irresponsible fecundity”
of Egyptians for that nations run-on population growth
• The Iranian peasant’s natural libidinal tendencies for
the same rise in population
• Muslim as hypersexual and hyper-fecund and hence a
drain on resources
• Forced sterilization of 20 million “violators” of the
Chinese government’s One-Child Policy
• Vietnam and Mexico also conducted coercive mass
sterilization
• As stated by Singh et al. (2011), one primary cause of
overpopulation in the Philippines is the lack of family
planning and education
 It’s the
economy.
NOT THE
BABIES!
The use of population control to prevent economic crises
has its critics
• Betsy Hartmann disagrees with the advocates of neo-
Malthusian Theory and accused governments of using
population control as a “substitute for social justice
and much needed reforms” such as land distribution,
employment creation, provision of mass education and
• health care.
Neo-Malthusianism refers to the belief that population
control through the use of contraception is essential
for the survival of Earth’s human population
• Others pointed out that the population did grow fast in
many countries in 1960's and this growth “aided
economic development by spurring technological
and institutional innovation and increasing the
supply of human ingenuity”
• Advances in agricultural production have shown that the
Malthusian nightmare can be prevented
• The “Green Revolution” created high-yielding
varieties of rice and other cereals, and along with
the development of new methods of cultivation
increased yields globally, but more particularly in the
• Between 1950 and 1984, global grain production
developing world.
increased by over 250 percent, allowing agriculture to
keep pace with the population growth, thereby keeping
global famine under control.
• Scholars and policymakers agree with the neo-
Malthusians but suggest that if governments pursue
population control programs, they must include “more
inclusive growth” and “greener economic growth”
 Top 20 Countries in the World by
Population (2024)

Reference:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-
 Fertility
• The Latin root word is fertilis, "bearing in abundance or fruitful," from ferre, "to
bear."

• The ability to conceive and bear children, the ability to become pregnant
through normal sexual activity.

• Fertility is the ability to have babies or to reproduce. When fertility rates in a

community increase, more babies are born.

• Fertility Rate - the ratio of live births in an area to the population of that
area; expressed per 1000 population per year

• Fertility can be ascertained from statistics of births. The study of fertility does
not indicate the level of fecundity for which there is no direct measurement

• Fecundity refers to the maximum potential child-bearing ability of the women

in a society. It is sharply reduced in practice by cultural norms, finances and
Women and
REPRODUCTIV
E RIGHTS
• Women are often subject of these population measures.
Reproductive rights supporters argue that if population control
and economic development were to reach their goals, women
must have control over whether they will have children or
not and when they have their progenies- they will be able to
• pursue their vocations.
This correlation between family, fertility and fortune has
motivated countries with growing economies to introduce or
strengthen their reproductive health laws.

• High-income First World Nations and fast-developing countries

were able to sustain growth in part because women were
given the power of choice and easy access to reproductive
technologies
• In North America and Europe, 73% of governments allow
abortion upon a mother’s request. Moreover, the more
educated a woman is, the better are her prospects of
improving her economic position.
• Most countries implement reproductive health laws because
they worry about the health of the mother.
• In 1960, Bolivia’s total fertility rate (TFR) was 6.7 children. In
1978, the Bolivian government put into effect a family
planning program that included the legalization of
abortion. In 1985, the TFR went down to 5.13 and further
• A similar to
declined pattern occurred
3.46 in 2008. in Ghana after the government
expanded reproductive health laws out of the same concern as
the Bolivian government. As a result, fertility declined steeply
and continued to decline after 1994.
• In 2014, the united Nations noted that the proportion of
countries allowing abortion to preserve the physical health of a
woman increased from 63% to 67% and those to preserve the
mental health of a woman increased from 52% to 64%.
• Opponents regarded reproductive rights as nothing but a false
front for abortion. They contend that this method of preventing
conception endangers the life of a mother and must be
• banned.
The religious wing of the anti-reproductive right flank goes
further and describes abortion as a debauchery that sullies the
name of God; it will send the mother to hell and prevents the
baby to become human.
• Unfailing pressures by Christian groups compelled the
governments of Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and even
Russia to impose restrictive reproductive health programs,
including making access to condoms and other technologies
• Muslim countries do not condone abortion and limit wives to
domestic chores
• Senegal only allows abortion when mother’s life is threatened.
• The Philippines, with a Catholic majority, now has a
reproductive health law but conservative politicians have
enfeebled it through budget cuts.
 Migration
• refers to the movement of people into and out of a specified
territory.

2 types of Migration
• Internal Migration - the movement of people from one
area to another within a country
• International Migration - the movement of people from
one country to another
 Classification of People who cross
borders from one country to another
 Are Migrants assets or liabilities to
receiving countries?
• Receiving countries or countries of destination see international migration as a problem.
Thus the solutions include 1) stricter immigration policies, 2) return policies, and 3)
providing development aids to sending countries in the hope that it will solve the root
cause of international migration.
• The fear of international migration having an adverse effect to native-born citizen is
invalidated by the report of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
in 2013 (Claudio & Abinales, 2018).
• Most receiving countries have ‘anti-migrationist’ strategy because they believed that
migration should stop (De Haas, 2003).

• Receiving countries would argue that the lack of economic development of sending
countries led people to move to rich countries. (For the most part the movement is from
South to North).
 Causes of Migration
• Disparity of income, employment and social well-
being
• Differences on demographic patterns with regards to
fertility
• Rapid increase in cross-border flows
• A catastrophe (such as war or environmental
degradation)
• Migrations may lead to international communicative
networks, which affect economic relations, social and
political institutions.
 Benefit and Challenges of
International Migration
BENEFITS CHALLENGES

• In 2014, remittances reached • Brain drain- more professionals

$580 Billion. are leaving their countries.

• Remittances help generate • In 2006, 15% of doctors in 21

jobs, sub-Saharan African countries
emigrated to the US and
• improve the lives of the Canada (Claudio & Abinales,
families of migrants. 2018).

• The purchasing power of a • Problem of immigrants to

migrant’s family doubles integrate to the culture of new
(Claudio & Abinales, 2018). home country.
Philippine Migration Experience
When it comes to international migration, the
Philippines rank 6th (together with Afghanistan)
among top sending countries (Claudio & Abinales,
2018).
Positive Effects of Migration
Negative Effects of Migration
 Labor Force
total number of people within a given population who are
currently employed plus the number of people who are
unemployed and actively seeking work. This group of
people is measured by the labor force participation rate,
a key metric used by experts to evaluate employment
data and gauge current labor market conditions.
Reference Period
The reference period for this survey is the
“past week” referring to the past seven (7)
days preceding the date of visit of the
enumerator or the interviewer.
Source: https://psa.gov.ph/system/files/technical-notes/Technical%20Notes%20-
LFS_0.pdf
 Employment Status
Concepts
Population 15 Years Old and Over
• number of population 15 years old and over excluding overseas
workers. Overseas workers are excluded in the estimation of the
size of working population (population aged 15 years and over)
since the data on their economic characteristics are not collected
because they are not considered part of the labor force in the
country.
In the Labor Force or Economically Active Population
• persons 15 years old and over who are eitherployed or
unemployed in accordance with the definitions described
below.
 Employment Status
Employed Concepts
Employed persons include all those who, during the reference period are
15 years old and over as of their last birthday, and are reported either:

a. At work, i.e., those who do any work even for one hour during the
reference period for pay or profit, or work without pay on the farm or
business enterprise operated by a member of the same household related
by blood, marriage, or adoption; or

b. With a job but not at work, i.e., those who have a job or business
but are not at work because of temporary illness or injury, vacation, or
other reasons. Likewise, persons who expect to report for work or to start
operation of a farm or business enterprise within two weeks from the date
of the enumerator’s visit are considered employed.
 Employment Status
Concepts
Underemployed
• include all employed persons who express the desire to
have additional hours of work in their present job, or an
additional job, or to have a new job with longer working
hours. Visibly underemployed persons are those who work
for less than 40 hours during the reference period and
want additional hours of work.
 Employment Status
Unemployed Concepts
Starting April 2005, the new unemployment definition was adopted per NSCB
Resolution Number 15 dated 20 October 2004.

As indicated in the said resolution: Unemployed persons include all those who,
during the reference period, are 15 years old and over as of their last birthday, and
reported as persons:
a) Without work, i.e., had no job or business during the reference period;

b) Currently available for work, i.e., were available and willing to take up work in
paid employment or self-employment during the reference period, and/or would be
available and willing to take up work in paid employment or self-employment within
two weeks after the interview date; and

c) Seeking work, i.e., had taken specific steps to look for a job or establish a
business during the reference period, or Not seeking work due to the following
reasons:
 Employment Status
Concepts
Persons Not in the Labor Force
• Persons 15 years old and over who are neither employed nor
unemployed according to the definitions mentioned. Those
not in the labor force are persons who are not looking for
work because of reasons such as housekeeping, schooling,
and permanent disability. Examples are housewives,
students, persons with disability, or retired persons.
 August 2024 Labor Force Survey
in the Philippines

Source:
https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/fil
es/infographics/2024%20August%
20Labor%20Force%20Survey.pdf?
width=950&height=700&iframe=
true
THANK YOU!