CPD says falling fertility rate opens doors to better workforce

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Population and Development (CPD) on Thursday said the country’s declining fertility rate could help make the population “more manageable” and presents an “opportunity” for the government to create a better quality workforce.

Speaking on the sidelines of a forum in Mandaluyong City, CPD Deputy Executive Director Lolito Tacardon said the declining fertility rate would affect the country’s labor force because of a decrease in human resources.

However, he noted that the issue does not necessarily present a problem since it could be an “opportunity” for the government to improve the quality of the country’s workforce.

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“The opportunity that we’re looking at is if the population is more manageable, the government can invest more on education, invest more on health, invest more on skills development, so you would have a more quality human resource,” Tacardon told reporters in Filipino.

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“So, if you are able to make those quality human resource find work, they would have a higher productivity as compared to if you have a lot of human resource but they are not employed, because they don’t have the quality health, education and skills,” he added.

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Citing the results of the latest National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), CPD said in an earlier statement that the fertility rate in the country has gone down to 1.7 children per woman in 2025 from 1.9 in 2022, and has been continuously declining since 1993.

This figure is lower than the 2.1 number of children per woman considered as replacement fertility level, noted PSA.

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However, CPD also said the declining fertility rates present a “window of opportunity” for the government since the majority of the population are entering working age, which ranges from 15 to 64 years old.

It noted that working age Filipinos now comprise 63.9 percent of the country’s population.

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“It’s an opportunity but at the same time a challenge for us. If you do not optimize [the population], there would be negative implications,” Tacardon said.

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But although the country’s youth are “full of ambition,” Tacardon noted that their environment is not “facilitative of realizing their aspirations.” He said the youth needs an “enabling environment” where they receive support as they pursue their studies while also removing financial barriers and other challenges, so that they can grow into productive members of society.

“One of the barriers that we are encountering is the increasing incidence of early pregnancy. So, when it comes to policy, we need to make sure that the youth are able to complete their studies and are not derailed by early pregnancies,” Tacardon said.

To prevent early pregnancies, Tacardon called for the implementation of policies that help provide the youth with the necessary information and give them access to reproductive health services, as well as strengthening mechanisms on preventing sexual abuses.

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He added that the recent classification of the Philippines as an upper-middle-income country should help increase investments that would result in more job opportunities for the working population. With a report from Marc Andre Esguerra, intern /jpv