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SWS report adult unemployment is steadily increasing

Press Release

 

 

          “The recent SWS report that adult unemployment is steadily increasing clearly exposes the detrimental effects of a lack of a comprehensive policy on reproductive health and family planning on our people.”

           This is the reaction of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman to the SWS survey which revealed that 11.3 million or 27.2% of Filipinos over the age of 18 are jobless or an increase of 1.4 million jobless over the 9.9 million unemployed in November 2010.

           According to Lagman, who is the principal author of the RH bill in the House of Representatives, “this development should spur Congress to finally enact into law the reproductive health bill because there are empirical data which document the links between high fertility and resulting population growth to persistent poverty and wage stagnation in developing countries like the Philippines.”

           Lagman explained that based on research conducted by respected economists Ernesto Pernia and Aniceto Orbeta, rapid population growth expands the labor supply and this will translate into either a decline in wages or an increase in unemployment if there is no commensurate increase in employment opportunities.

           He also cited a World Bank study that shows that rapid population growth is likely to depress wages at the bottom end of the pay scale in developing countries where there are disproportionately high levels of fertility among the lowest income groups.

           “This means workers in the lowest economic quintile who are precisely the ones who are already the most impoverished would also be the ones most affected by falling wages”, Lagman added.

           He underscored that the RH bill is a health-oriented and development-driven measure that will not only help women and couples plan and space their children. It is also a development tool that will assist the government in its anti-poverty campaign as there is indisputable evidence of the linkage between population and sustainable human development.