Philippines PSA Drops 12th Release of 2023 Vital Statistics as of 31 May 2024, on 31 July 2024. Lagging Late Registrations for 4th QTR, Particularly Outside NCR, Limit Data Utility For Assessment.

In NCR data, births are slightly better than 2022 (+2.2%) while deaths are also higher (+4.2%). There is no indication of any pull-forward recovery on deaths, concerning for population health.

The 12th release of Philippines 2023 vital statistics presented provisional data for births, marriages, and deaths. This data is compiled effective 31 May 2024, i.e. with 5 months of late registrations incorporated. 25,989 deaths and 33,754 births were added since the last data drop that was effective as of 30 April 2024. Overall data from 2019 to current latest release shown. I have dashed the line for data that is still clearly incomplete.

Data is incomplete for late registrations for all areas outside of NCR (National Capital Region - which encompasses Metro Manila with her 17 cities), which appears to be substantially complete with 82,262 deaths and 163,658 births. Thus, in today’s report, I contrast national data with NCR data.

Marriages

Marriages reflect societal comfort and affluence to some extent: weddings are expensive, and indeed many couples in the Philippines live out of wedlock; in 2022, 58% of all births occurred from unmarried mothers. Even given this, the Philippines still has a young population and the pattern of reducing marriages over time surely must reflect a somewhat adverse social and economic situation.

In 2020, under harsh lockdowns, marriages plummeted. A good portion of those who had planned to, but didn’t get married in 2020, perhaps did not ever get married as marriages only partially recovered in 2021 (still under lockdowns), and there was no considerable rebound in 2022 or 2023 (late registration may somewhat improve the sitaution).

2023 marriages in NCR are higher than the peak pandemic years of 2020 to 2021, but still lower than last normal year of 2019, and 2022.

Births

The 2023 data drop pattern shows that births appear to be dropping off from July onwards. Some of this may still be late registrations, particularly for the last quarter of 2023, but also likely reflects a progressive trending of decreasing births.

National 2023 and historical data shows births dropping from July onwards, though the steep drop from October to December still reflects delayed registrations; the apparent recovery of births to above 2021 and 2022 levels in the first months of 2023 was not sustained after mid-year.

The fact of delayed registrations is supported by NCR data, which shows a 2.2% increase in births for 2023 vs. 2022, and with the monthly pattern of births similar to both 2021 and 2022. NCR shows a drop of about 24.5% fewer babies in 2022 compared to 2018 (53,213 fewer annual births).

Deaths

2023 data accumulation over time is shown. The end of 2023 data is still clearly incomplete for lagging late registrations from August onwards.

2022 had Two Notable Death Spikes Both Related to C-19 Injectables Rollouts

From the national data, note the death spikes in January 2022 (hard push on booster delivery, including second delivery of Janssen hot lots), and August 2022 (bivalent boosters from Lithuania).

Aside from January and August 2022, deaths in the first half of 2023 are considerably higher than 2022 levels. 2023 deaths are higher than both 2019 and 2020, but lower than 2021 and 2022 which were the 2 years with major population Covid-19 injectable delivery.

How much of the drop off is late registrations and how much is a real drop off in deaths? NCR data shows deaths in 2023 are higher than 2022, i.e. there has been no recovery from the mass excess deaths from 2020 to 2022.

This is easier to see when just the 2022 and 2023 data is plotted. The big 2022 January death spike from boosters and Janssen is apparent, as well as the smaller spike from bivalent doses in August 2022.

Regional Birth and Death Data

Visualization of data shows that data for regions outside NCR data is incomplete. If their data in final compilation follows that of NCR, then total deaths in 2023 may well be higher than deaths in 2022, and final birth data remains to be seen.

Region IVA data seems to be reasonable complete as well. Their deaths show higher than 2022 every month except January and August, with overall 4.7% more deaths in 2023 than 2022. 2023 births after June are lower than 2022, but overall births are similar (-0.2% lower in 2023).

What is not be measured cannot be managed! Efforts to complete vital statistics are of critical importance. 2025 is a census year, population scientists have already commenced data collection in the provinces (reported by friends there). Once released, it will be interesting to observe how that census data compares with compiled PSA data.