Preliminary 2024 Data (compiled Effective 30 November 2024) Shows National Births in January 2024 have dropped by 26% Compared to January 2019. NCR Births in this same period have dropped by 33.5%.

In 2024 the Philippines had an estimated median age of 25.7, and the majority of babies (28%) were born to mother aged 25 to 29. Population momentum should mean births are still rising. They are not!

With the release of the final official 2023 Statistics last 31 January 2025, along with 2024 data compiled effective 30 November 2024, I decided to do a breakdown of 2023 registered birth by region and to take a look at initial trending for 2024.

With 2024 data compiled as of 30 November 2024, I expect that the birth data for the first few months of 2024 should already be substantially complete for most regions and give at least an indication of birth trending in 2024.

Note that births have been trending consistently downwards since 2012. That trending accelerated in 2020 but could not be due to Covid-19 or vaccines: pregnancies take 9-months, the Covid-19 vaccines were only introduced starting March 2021 to the elderly and health care workers, and to the general population, including pregnant women, by last quarter of the year. Could this drop in births be due to aggressive family planning education and outreach? Other health issues? Social and financial pressures? The impact of Covid-19 vaccines, if any, would be expected to make its impact starting in 2022 and thereafter.

There was a very sharp drop in births in 2020 and even further 2021, This is surprising given the harsh lockdowns starting from March 2020 where people were locked in their homes without much to do. Human nature should have resulted in a baby boom into 2021 (assuming less access to contraception under lockdown conditions). There wasn’t! The 2020 and 2021 drop could have been partly explained by non-registration of births under lockdowns. This no longer holds for 2022 and 2023 when normal movements were resumed, but without any recovery in births towards 2019 levels.

The Philippines has 17 Regions. Average monthly births by year and region are set out and summarized. In the table, for 2024 I have only averaged Jan-February Births which are the highest data currently available. Note however, that January and February tend to be lower birth months, which may artificially skew the 2024 preliminary data comparison downwards.

When average monthly births in 2023 are compared with 2019 average monthly births, all regions except BARMM (+13.9%) have big losses (range from -8.6% to -24.9%). Preliminary 2024 data are all far lower than 2023 data (range from -12.5% to -27.2%) making possible losses for 2024 compared to 2019 even greater (range from -17.1 to -37.8%).

Pardon if the table is complicated, but some of readers may be interested in this data for their home provinces.

To simplify understanding, I have also plotted births for Philippines overall, showing average monthly births since 2019, and preliminary monthly data for 2024. January 2024 births are 26% lower than January 2019 births. 1/4 of births lost over a period of just 5 years?!?! Monthly data from 2019 to the latest available release is also plotted to show trending over time.

I provide the same plotted birth data for every region for readers who might be interested.

National capital region has lost a shocking 33.5% of births between January 2019 and January 2025! I would expect January 2024 data is already pretty complete. Births towards mid-year are lower than prior data, though hopefully will rise somewhat with late registrations. Nevertheless, it appears that 2024 might be the lowest birth year on record.

The patterns of dropping births from 2019 through to 2024 are consist across all regions.

Hopefully the 1st quarter data in Region VI is simply due to late registrations and will improve in later months.

I have been prioritizing tracking deaths in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods; watching as deaths have been rising over time (I will present the by region death data in a stack later this week).

However, I am becoming very concerned with the birth data and want to raise an alarm! Could the Philippines lose 20 - 30 % of her annual birth count over just a 5-year period?

Are people not wanting to have babies? If this is the case, why? Or are they unable to have / to bear the number of children they want to have due to fertility issues, or due to financial or other causes?

As already mentioned, Philippines population growth has been in steady decline since 2012, prior to Covid-19. Birth losses accelerated in the first years of covid-19, unlikely due to Covid-19 or vaccines and maybe partially due to missed registrations. However, birth losses continued into 2022 and 2023 without respite. From preliminary data 2024 may present the biggest loss of births to date.

Drops in birth rates are happening globally in most nations, and particularly those whose population were heavily vaccinated. Mechanisms of fertility harm are described by many authors.

Such a rapid loss in births is not cause for “population control” celebration! The implication of crashing birth rates are catastrophic for the future of the Philippines!

• All the industries revolving around and built to serve children are facing rapidly dropping business.

• Tax and business revenues may be affected.

• The nation faces labor shortages as the numbers of young people drop rapidly (and older people die).

• The nation will not be birthing enough children to maintain a stable population, particularly in the face of high outward migration to meet global demand for Filipino workers and as Filipinos migrate in search of better opportunities.

• Population contraction is possibly already in progress if Births - Deaths - Outwards migration is taken into account.

  

  RAISE THE ALARM!