Written Report:

Population vulnerabilities to crises

and pandemics:
Population changes and
demographic transformations
Group 5

BSSE III-10

Adolfo, Donnabel
Dimasakat, Eric John
Septimo, Francisco Jr.
Mostoles, Sunshine Grace
Vito, Nicole Andrea
 The population of the world is both volatile and fragile, a single event can shape it for
the following years to come whether it is an increase or decrease. With that said, certain factors
can open humanity to vulnerabilities, this could be in the form of illnesses, economic
recessions, state of healthcare and even the treatment and mentality of the female population,
that greatly affect the population rate. These factors can also determine what kind of trend the
population will make and can also reveal the situation of a country, if it is poor or rich, thriving
or waning. With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, humanity is presently facing this
vulnerability, causing a disequilibrium to everyone. There is the constant anxiety and fear, not
only due to the virus that wiped millions globally, but with the psychological turmoil it caused
to the people.

The concept of pandemic is not new. Looking back at the beginning of the Neolithic
Revolution 12 thousand years ago and the Era of Global Population from 1851-1971, the
population of the world was so high in which the ‘growth itself was growing’. The total 120
years of this so-called Era of Global population has experienced a lot of interruption and
notably reduced a significant number in the global population. Among these interruptions, four
major historical events remarkably altered the global population. First is the occurrence of
World War 1 to the spread of Influenza during 1918-1919. Second, the Economic Crash in
1929 and the Great Depression in 1936. Third, Second World War and; Lastly, the Great
Chinese Famine in 1958-1961 where over 45 million premature deaths are recorded. These
four events can be categorized as a geographical disease, natural disaster, and war which play
an important function on how and why population changes at the same time, this resulted to a
relatively slow growth of the global population.

Figure 1 World Annual Population Growth and Level 1821-2100

Scholars were even expecting a further slowdown in the global population because of
the far more advancing society. This includes women emancipation, introduction and usage of
condoms and contraceptive pills, awareness and control of disease and poverty, universal
education, and technological advancement. All of the reasons mentioned above are contributing
factors to the continued decline in the world Population and rapidly decrease the fertility rate
of a country and increase life expectancy especially those part of the ‘global north’ or widely
known as developed countries. Northern America, Europe, and Japan, are some of the
developed countries experiencing extreme low fertility rate while high in life expectancy. As a
result, they are now facing an ageing population, potential demographic and pension crisis
(Daniels, et al. 2016).

Another reason why population decreases in another country (but an increase in

another) is through migration. Migration is the term used to describe individuals who move
from one place to another. It could be either voluntary or forced. Voluntary migration happens
when individuals relocate with their own will to search for a better life, or employment whereas
forced migration occurs when people depart their homeland to seek refuge in another location
due to natural disasters and man-made conflicts such as war or persecution.

Migration of people can be determined by various reasons, these may be economic,

social, political or environmental. Economic migration is the migration of people from one
country to another for better economic opportunity. The migrants are the people who want to
find better work and career. Some examples of these are the OFWs (Overseas Filipino
Workers), Students who studied abroad and eventually worked there. Social migration is
relocating to improve one's life or to be with their family or friends. People who have parents
or relatives abroad can petition to move from one country to the country where their parents or
loved one’s live. Political migration is mainly driven by political interest. It is fleeing political
oppression or conflict. One of the recent examples is the fleeing of people of Afghanistan
because of the overtaking of terrorists to their country. The Taliban Terrorist managed to
conquer their government and now people want to leave their country because of fear of
oppression. Lastly Environmental causes of migration environmental migrants are persons that
are compelled to leave their native places because of abrupt and long-term changes in their
local environment. These alterations may endanger their well-being or ability to earn a living.

The words "Global North" and "Global South" are used to classify nations based on
socioeconomic and political factors. The "Global South" are the low-income countries, whereas
the word "Global North" are the developed countries. Global south to south migration is
influenced by labor-market opportunities Migrants from extremely poor countries frequently
relocate to countries that are significantly wealthier than their home country. Migration across
countries in the Global North is primarily prompted by labor-market opportunities. Global
south to north migration is attributable to people's yearning for better jobs and higher living
standards. Migration from south to north is also a strategy of Transnational companies (TNCs)
Transnational corporations are those that do business in more than one country. TNCs include
Unilever, McDonald's, and Apple. TNCs often have offices and headquarters in the
industrialized world. It locates plants in poor countries where land and labor are less expensive.
Global north to south migration is mainly because of charity, religious and aid activities (Boyle,
2015).

Figure 2 International Migrant Population

According to the World Economic Forum (2020) Globally, there are an estimated 272
million foreign migrants. That equates to 3.5 percent of the global population, and the number
of people living in countries other than the one in which they were born has tripled. With 17.5
million Indian-born persons living abroad, India remains the primary source of international
migrants. Mexico and China both have more than 10 million former citizens scattered over the
world, and the United States is the most popular destination for migrants.

Also, Health and Mortality Transition affects migration. Because there is a decrease in
mortality rate due to noncommunicable diseases. And food supply transition is a sign of
increase in mortality rate due communicable diseases. There is a migration happening, because
of the health and mortality transition, due to the fact that we already know how to control
diseases with the help of medical technology. Hence, people may opt to stay or transfer from
one place to another. Lastly, those who are incapable in their economic and social needs and
are well-off defined as having a disadvantage and deprived from having an advantage in the
society that are mostly felt by the minority groups which are also experiencing low life
expectancy rating sometimes prefer to just stay and would not opt to migrate (Weeks, 2015).

Presently, the main drivers for population growth and migration, and the hallmark of
human history, lies in the COVID-19 Pandemic. This pandemic has everything turned around
for the whole world. Going outdoors is more a risk rather than leisure. 257 million cases have
been recorded and it caused 5, 150, 399 deaths based on the report of John Hopkins Coronavirus
Research Center (2021). But, surprisingly, 70% of the deaths came from high-income countries
mainly, United States, Italy, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Those who can provide
proper healthcare and advanced hospital facilities have the high cases. This could be due to the
high ageing-population and the difficulty of implementing social distancing protocols in these
dense countries (Schellekens & Sourrouille, 2020). According to the study of Center for
Disease Control and Prevention (2020), 79% of the African-American community in Atlanta
are more likely to get a worse condition and hospitalized if the contact the virus due to lack of
access to health care, more prone to get exposed, underlying medical conditions, and income
and wealth gaps (minorities are more likely to work in an environment that caters people). This
data is corroborated by the study of David et al., (2020) wherein when they study the population
of the United States during the start, the height, peak, surge, and downtrend of the COVID-19
wherein they measured the correlation of Population Density as a predictor of the rate of
infection using logarithmic scale. They stated that “Density is destiny” meaning that infectious
diseases are more likely to spread in densely populated areas because a highly dense population
makes it nigh impossible to implement the most effective way of preventing the spread of the
virus which is social distancing. They specifically highlighted that the most vulnerable part of
the population are the older adults and racial-ethnic minority groups who typically live in such
areas.

The main factor that sets apart this event done to other events is how there is a no chance
for a population boom. According to the study of two behavioral and social scientists Friedman
& Parker (2021) COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the very make up of our society and its process
from fertility, mortality, and migration — according to them we have been in decline in terms
of fertility for a while now and more likely to get in to lower rate and that could cause economic
problems wherein there are going to be a lot of dependents while having little volume of people
entering the labor force. They speculated that like many epidemic or pandemic that occurred
throughout history it directly led to the baby-boom generation wherein after the event there’s
a sudden increase in fertility rate, however, the study of Harper (2021) contradicted this
sentiment wherein they noticed that the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t have the classic drivers
to initiate a baby boom because unlike previous events COVID-19 doesn’t target children thus
there’s not really that much of a desire to replace them let alone to be obligated to bear a child.
What this pandemic did however is to affect the mental and physical health of this generation's
potential parent population which have had a huge impact in their decision-making especially
people who can be classified as the poor due to spatial inequality.

Figure 3 Number of COVID cases reported by WHO as of December, 2019

In the Philippines, there seem to be clashing drivers when it comes to our population.
The country has 2 million COVID cases and 47 thousand deaths as of November 21, 2021
according to the Department of Health weekly report. Though there may seem a 1.3% of
population growth, a huge slow down from the previous years, there is an increase of teenage
pregnancy. Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) sees the community
quarantines and lockdowns, their family planning services were hindered, as well, caused an
increase on teenagers’ sexual behavior thus resulting to this trend (Santos, 2020).

Figure 4 Population Growth of the Philippines

Additionally, the Department of Health (DOH) (2021) have recorded an increase in the
HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines, with 890 cases. The most affected are men who have sex
with men (MSM), sex workers, and transgender women. With the same reason as POPCOM,
the quarantine and lockdowns heightened the sexual behavior of couples, the Anti-retroviral
services and other STD related treatments were barred. HIV/AIDS can affect the population
growth by slowing it down. Jamison, et al. (2006) observed how the HIV/AIDS epidemic
affected the Sub-Saharan Africa and noted how this disease changed habits thus resulting to a
decrease in the rate of the population. This trend can also be transferred to the Philippines.

In terms of migration, the Philippines has a -1.46% migration and is predicted to follow
through. The negative rate states that more people left the country rather than entering it. This
could be because how Filipino healthcare workers would rather work overseas than provide
services in the country. The pandemic caused a huge demand to healthcare workers around the
world, and considerably, another country can pay higher income to our nurses than our
government (ASEAN Briefing, 2021).

Figure 5 Migration Rate of the Philippines, 2021

The pandemic is far from over. The virus is still here and not everyone has access to
vaccines or even other healthcare services and each day a soul lost due to it. We must do our
part in lessening the spread and avoid contact. We will not only help our families but our
healthcare workers, as well. Our decision, as well as the government, will make a huge impact
on how we will recover from this turmoil. Soon, a post-pandemic world will arrive, and we
will come back stronger and wiser than ever.
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