STEEP analysis
Social factor
The Philippines had an estimated population of 88.6M in August 2007. The rate of population growth has been slowing in recent decades (according to national sources), from an average of 3% per year in the 1960s to 2.1% in the 1990s. This reflects two trends: a fall in the birth rate and a fall in the death rate as infant mortality rates have declined. Thus the crude birth rate fell from 46 per 1,000 in 1960 to 30 per 1,000 in 2000 (when the last census was held) as family planning became more widely accepted. Population density is high in metropolitan Manila and neighboring areas of central Luzon, whereas Mindanao, Negros and the other southern islands are sparsely populated. There has also been substantial migration out of the Philippines, permanent and also temporary (in the form of overseas employment under contract), which has held down both the population resident in the Philippines and the rate of unemployment. Education standards are fairly high in Philippine. Healthcare provision is inadequate. UNDP data show that the Philippines had only 58 doctors per 100,000 people in 2000. To some extent, as in the case of education, this reflects budgetary constraints.
Technological factors
The transport infrastructure is inadequate, having suffered from decades of underinvestment. During the 1990s some of the most serious shortcomings began to be tackled, and a number of infrastructure projects are currently under way, but development has been concentrated in economic hubs. The telecommunications system used to be inadequate and unreliable, and telephone density stood at only 1 per 100 people in the mid-1980s. The deregulation of the sector in 1993 transformed the situation. Presidential decrees mandated interconnections betwe ...