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Monday, May 16, 2005
Half of Metro Cebu population under 21
By CHARMAINE Y. RODRIGUEZ
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
POPULATION data show that Cebu is inhabited mostly by young people, which spares it from the burdens aging societies face.
But this could pose a challenge to local governments, who will have to make education more accessible and provide jobs, or at least an investment climate that attracts jobs, for the bulk of the population.
An analysis presented in the book “A Demographic and Socioeconomic Profile Based on the 2000 Census,” by the Office of Population Studies of the University of San Carlos, shows a young population in Cebu.
Age structures reveal that half of the population is below 21 years old. The most commonly occurring age or the modal age is 4.4 years old, especially in Metro Cebu, where the population is concentrated.
The 2000 census recorded a total of 166,030 persons four years old or younger, who are residing in Metro Cebu alone.
A year from now, all those who turned one in 2000 will be of school age.
Commission on Population (Popcom) 7 Director Leo Rama warned that this could mean the need for governments to subsidize education, to ensure that majority of this age group will be in school.
It will also emphasize the perennial lack of classrooms and teachers in the province and the component cities.
This could still worsen if the trend will continue with the young couples, Rama said.
The Department of Education 7 projects enrolment figures for elementary students to reach 544,175 by this school year.
This is coupled with a need for 661 classrooms and 466 teachers.
Outward
Meanwhile, Rama said the data showing that the province is an “out-migration” area surprised him since it speaks that the economy may not be doing very well.
For census purposes, migration is defined as the change in the place of residence during the past five years. The authors of the study only considered 10.7 percent of the province’s population as migrants.
However, with the census survival rate, which was computed using figures from the 1995 and 2000 censuses, Cebu Province yielded negative results.
This indicates that out-migration was not compensated by in-migration.
According to the study, it is a “common perception that Cebu City and Metro Cebu attract a lot of migrants from their neighboring municipalities and surrounding islands due to the presence of economic opportunities in the metropolitan area.”
Lapu-Lapu too
However, the authors of the study pointed out that while a city can attract migrants, it could also be an area of out-migration.
They said that while Cebu City is host to several universities that produce skilled graduates for its labor force, not all of them found employment in the city.
Some opted to seek employment opportunities outside the city, province, region or country.
Aside from Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City is also an out-migration area.
“The lower out-migration rate for females depicts that Lapu-Lapu, host to an economic zones, tended to hire more female workers,” the study says.
However, migration data in Mandaue City shows that it reversed the trend in Metro Cebu and Cebu City, since it is an in-migration area and has attracted more male, than female, laborers.
“A good number of firms have decided to put up their factories in Mandaue in response to such incentives as lower tax rates. Mandaue is also home to small and medium enterprises, which serve either as exporters or sub-contractors to the firms located in the Mactan Economic Zone. Thus, factories tend to locate in Mandaue City,” according to the study. |
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