Attempts at Measuring the Population-and-Development (Pop-Dev) Impacts of Overseas Migration to Origin Countries: The Case of the Philippines

Population and development (Pop-Dev) as a concept has been discussed and studied but with much emphasis on fertility, the most prominent among the three population processes. But there remain to be unclear relationships between population growth and migration, particularly international migration. Some say international migration helps stabilize population growth, while others do not find any impact that overseas migration provides. Then concepts such as “demographic winter” and “demographic dividend” come into the picture, especially and particularly for overpopulated countries.

Nevertheless, the relationship between population-and-development processes and overseas migration remain underexplored. Meanwhile, scholarship and studies on international migration have seen attempts at trying to determine the social and economic impact of the overseas migration phenomenon unto origin and/or destination countries.

This population-and-development paper intends to provide a pilot attempt at determining the place of international migration (and its sister population process, internal migration) in the Pop-Dev discourse. The end goal of this paper is to look at the feasibility of making an attempt to measure the Pop-Dev impacts of the overseas migration phenomenon, through the case of the Philippines.