Teenage pregnancy poses serious threats to Philippine economic growth particularly on its labor force, according to experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). READ:
Ms. Villanueva, who lives in the central Philippine province of Southern Leyte, got pregnant last year and is expected to give birth in March.
The Philippines is estimated to lose P33 billion a year due to adolescent pregnancy, which the Philippine government considers a national priority, she told a news briefing. Foregone income of teenage girls who get pregnant is P83,000 a year. The Philippines faces a learning crisis that experts say threatens the Filipino labor force, which is struggling to compete in the global market.
Health department officer-in-charge Maria Rosario S. Vergeire said adolescent pregnancy could result in poor social and economic outcomes “for both the adolescent mother and her child.” But the window opportunity that the demographic dividend brings may be lost if Filipinos are not able to care for their sexual and reproductive health and their families, it said.“Those who have been previously pregnant as teenagers are more likely to become pregnant again as teenagers, making them less likely to join the labor force,” Education Assistant Secretary Dexter A. Gablan said.
“A lot could have been detected if we were in normal times,” she said. “But we were in abnormal times.”
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