Reasons

The rapid movement of Filipinos from 1 part of the Philippines to another is not a new
phenomenon, but mobility has been increasing. A study conducted by Peter C. Smith
revealed that interprovincial lifetime mobility of the national population increased from
15.8% in 1960 to 17.6% in 1970, while interregional mobility increased from 12.7% to
13.4%. People still disagree as to whether the size and rate of growth of the population
are excessive, but there seems to be total consensus as regards its spatial imbalance.
Because internal migration appears to be an important factor in national development, a
need exists to examine different aspects of internal migration, such as the directions
taken by migration flows, the migrants' reasons for moving, the migrants' characteristics,
the migrants' success or lack of success at their places of destination, the social
problems accompanying internal migration, effforts to deal with the problems caused by
internal migration, and the implications of migration trends for policy and for the
country's development programs. The most dominant migration trend in the Philippines
in recent years has been toward the urban, or more accurately the suburban, areas
adjacent to Metropolitan Manila. The city of Manila itself suffered a net outflow, further
pointing to the trend toward suburbanization. Migration flows are primarily caused by
economic reasons. About one half the sample of a Filipinas Foundation Study moved to
provinces other than the province of birth in the pursuit of employment and other
economic opportunities. A study of the country's migrant population age 15 and older
showed that 53% of migrants were female. For male migrants, age ranges from 20-40; it
ranges from 15-35 for females. Where cash income is concerned, migrants in Pernia's
study of rural urban migration were better off than nonmigrants. Migrants were, on the
average, as well off as native urbanites or metropolitanites. Among the more significant
points raised by scholars and researchers are the following: urbanization is an inevitable
and irreversible process, and it is wise to plan for it; the problem is not rapid
urbanization but unbalanced urbanization, i.e., the concentration of urbanization in
Metro Manila; steps to alter national urban patterns might include establishing a
migration guidance office; the need exists for an explicit, firm, and consistent population
distribution policy; and solutions that anticipate problems having to do with internal
migration and prevent these problems from arising will, in the long run, be more
effective than curative solutions.

Pros
The migration of a family member brings additional income through remittances,
which can support household consumption and investment.
This income effect can reduce the need for child labor and increase children’s
schooling, notably for girls in developing countries.

Remittances can improve families’ sanitation, health care, and nutrition and fill in for
missing formal health insurance in the short term.

Remittances can enable remaining family members to engage in higher-risk, higher-

return productive activities.

Where most migrants are men, the bargaining power of women who stay behind may
be strengthened.

Cons
The migration of an economically active family member places a heavier burden on
those who stay behind, who must make up for the lost employment and spend more
time on household chores.

The absence of the main caregiver can increase children’s probability of dropping
out of school and delay school progression.

Disrupted family life can lead to poor diets and increased psychological problems.

Migration may reduce incentives for education when perceived future returns to
education are low because of expectations of migration.

Migration can reduce labor force participation for family members left behind,
especially for women.

Stat and Reason

• Internal migrants in the Philippines constitute a significant population. Approximately 2.9 million
Filipinos changed residence between 2005 and 2010. 50.4% were long distance movers (had changed
province), 45.4 % were short distance movers (had changed city), and 4.2 % were international
immigrants (Philippines Statistics Authority 2012). In 2017 there were just under 5.7 million Filipinos
living abroad (UNDESA 2017), though the increase in the number of Filipinos living abroad from 2005-
2010 was 1.1 million, slightly over just a third the volume of internal migrants in that period (Ogena
2015).

• The Philippines has undergone rapid urbanization which continues to this day. From 2000- 2010 the
urban population increased at an annual average of 3.3%, making it one of the fastest urbanizing
countries in the Asia-Pacific. In the last 50 years the urban population has increased Philippines Context
© Shutterstock/Phuong D. Nguyen | 3 by over 50 million, and in 2050 102 million people (over 65% of
the total population) will reside in cities (World Bank 2017a). In 2010, 41.9 million of the Philippines’
population of 92.3 million lived in urban areas (Philippines Statistics Authority 2013)1 , cities accounted
for over 70% of GDP, and the seven largest urban areas hosted 54% of formal jobs (World Bank 2017a).

Rural and agricultural poverty has driven internal migrants to seek opportunities in urban areas (IOM
2013). Agriculture’s share in total employment declined from 43% to 27.7% between 1991 and 2017
(World Bank 2018), and its contribution to the country’s GDP dropped from 23.2% in 1990 to 13.9% in
2010 (IOM 2013) and 9% in 2017 (Philippines Statistics Authority 2017).

In Mindanao, migrants’ reasons for moving differ by destination and by gender. Most male firsttime
migrants to rural areas migrate to start a new job (21%), or to get married (18%), while female first-time
migrants primarily move to rural areas for marriage (35%), or to start a new job (23%). On the other
hand, first-time migrants to to poblaciones and urban areas, both male and female, move either to start
a new job or to access better schooling. For the most recent move (compared to the first move) more
males (53%) to rural areas migrate for economic reasons than for lifecycle or family reasons, while most
female migrants to rural areas migrate for family reasons, with marriage accounting for 54% of female
migrants. But for migrants to poblaciones and urban areas, both male and female migrants primarily
move for economic reasons, with the next most important reason for moving being schooling for
females and marriage for males (ibid.).

• Migrants’ occupations vary substantially based on whether or not there are male or female and if they
are moving for the first time. - Men tend to work in farming, crafts and trades, manual labour and
transportation in both their first and most recent moves. - In contrast, women who have moved more
than once tend to work in housework or childcare, and are less likely to work in manual labour or
transportation. This suggests that women who work in the latter occupations when they first move
switch occupations on their subsequent move(s) (ibid.).

• Females are more likely to move to urban areas if they have more siblings. A possible explanation for
this is that siblings who have already migrated provide pre-existing support networks for younger sisters
in families (ibid.). • The predominance of women among rural-urban migrants can be explained by their
relative lack of education and skills (particularly in relation to agriculture). They are motivated to move
to cities to seek opportunities as a result (UN Habitat 2016).

• Women also migrate to escape abuse within marriage and to avoid the pressure that comes with
marrying early, and young people tend to see life in urban areas as exciting. Many migrants to Manila
use it as a stopgap measure and intend to organise a further international migration from there. They
use their time in Manila to accumulate funds, make administrative arrangements for overseas travel,
and gain work experience (Anderson et al. 2017).

• Climate change affects agricultural migration. Temperature rises and typhoons negatively affect rice
yields, and cause greater outmigration from agriculturally dependent provinces that have large rural
populations. Males, the better-educated, and younger individuals are especially sensitive to the
migratory effects of climate change (Bohra-Mishra et al. 2016).

• Internal remittances are largely sent via money transfer operators. 69% of Filipinos do not have bank
accounts, and for adults in the poorest 40% of households, this figure rises to 82%. Transfers are rarely
sent through financial institutions (World Bank Group 2015).
 • Remittances have had a significant positive impact on internal migrant-sending households’
expenditures, especially in the areas of clothing, footwear, and education. Households receiving
remittances also are able to accumulate consumer durables and non-land assets (Quisumbing and
McNiven 2010).

• Among poorer households, internal remittances generate more welfare than international
remittances (Ang, Sugiyarto and Jha 2009). However, not all internal migrants attain better jobs after
migrating and can afford to send remittances to their families.

International migrants and internal migrants together account for one in seven
people worldwide. These migrants do not always move with their entire family. More
often, they leave the rest of their family behind: their spouse, children, and parents.
Rigid migration policies, uncertain living conditions in the destination country or
region, and the high cost of migration are among the reasons why many people
migrate alone. In China, individuals who have migrated from rural areas to cities
have left behind an estimated 61 million children, 47 million wives, and 45 million
elderly relatives [1]. In the Philippines, one of the largest sources of migrant
laborers worldwide, around nine million children are growing up without at least one
of their parents because of migration.

The impact of migration on sending communities, especially on family members left

behind, has long been debated. On the one hand, labor migration is viewed as
economically benefiting the family in the home country through financial transfers.
Remittances can ease liquidity and budget constraints and thereby improve
households’ long-term welfare through investments in health care and education. On
the other hand, many studies have pointed out the social cost that migration
imposes on families left behind. In particular, the physical absence of the migrant
may have multiple adverse effects on family members’ education, health, labor
supply response, and social status. Thus, identifying the impact of migration on
family members who remain is an open empirical question with inconclusive
evidence.

Early studies on internal migration were linked to population growth and fertility. They coincided with
the rise and fall of international development agencies’ interest in the topic but were constrained by the
absence of dedicated national survey materials. Some more recent local area studies by Daix (2008),
Quisumbing and McNiven (2005 and 2007), and Gultiano and Xenos (2004) reveal the direction of the
flow of migration, i.e. rural to urban and rural to rural, and conclude that there is a higher migration rate
among women and youth. Based on their analysis of the 2000 Census of Population, Gultiano and Xenos
declare that 82.2 percent of young urban migrants are female, of which 74.3 percent migrated to the
NCR. They point to the pattern of ‘youth and female selectivity in urban migration’ from the 1960s
onwards. Prior to this period, the movement of land-poor inhabitants from the Visayas to the frontier
lands of Mindanao was dominated by men. As the frontier areas were developed and urbanized, the
number of female migrants gradually increased and eventually they became the predominant young
frontier migrants. If migrants are examined by age group, the concentration of migrants in the youth
ages (15-19, 20-24, and 25-29) is evident, especially in the highly urbanized areas. There is one
exception, however: the number of migrants aged 5-9 years is considerably larger in proportion
compared to youth migrants. With no data permitting a detailed investigation, one can only presume
that these children had migrated with their parents. Voluntary migration, however, appears to be the
prerogative of youth (Gultiano and Xenos 2004). Using the Bukidnon Panel Study, Quisumbing and
McNiven followed the movements of the children of the original respondents in the first survey. Internal
migration tended to be interprovincial, more in the direction of the National Capital Region and the
adjacent regions, and was dominated by women. The number of people over 5 years old who lived in
another city 13 or town in the five years preceding their current residence increased from 2.85 to 3.24
million between 1980 and 1990.

Philippine migration has both its positive and negative aspects. It has already been mentioned that
remittances sent back to the country strongly contribute to the economy as well as help ease
unemployment and underemployment. However, there are also the social costs of migration both for
the migrants and the families they leave behind. Among these is the breakdown of relationships
between spouses, as with parents and their children. Most migrants and their families back in the
Philippines lament the loneliness, anxieties and emotional aches and longings from long-term
separation, their inability to be present in the day-to-day lives of their spouses and children and to
physically share moments of joy, grief, disappointments and excitement.