What is going on? We haven’t been following the Middle East for the past month and a half. India-US relations seem to be shakier?
Day: June 11, 2026
The Philippines Birth Rate Crash
Precedent. Every Brown Pundits post, new ones included, must be at least 70 percent original to BP. Reposts from other sites are allowed, but the reposted portion must not exceed 30 percent of the post.
The Philippines has just recorded one of the fastest fertility declines in modern history, and almost nobody saw it coming.
In 1993 the average Filipino woman had 4.1 children. By 1998 it was 3.9, by 2013 around 3.0, and by 2017 it was 2.7. Then it fell off a cliff. The 2025 National Demographic and Health Survey put the figure at 1.7, well below the 2.1 a population needs to replace itself. That is a 37 percent drop in about eight years, the steepest the country has ever recorded. In the early 1950s, Filipino women were having more than seven children each.
At 1.7 the Philippines is not yet as low as East Asia. It still sits above Japan at 1.2 and well above South Korea at 0.8. What unsettles demographers is not the level but the speed, and the direction, which is the same one every developed Asian society has already taken.
Why nobody expected it
Architecture of belonging
There is a lot of debate taking place in the digital space regarding the safety of women in public spaces. Here, I am sharing an old opinion piece published in The News International on this issue.
Walk through any major city in Pakistan, and you’ll find that urban spaces speak a masculine language – the result of a parochial, patriarchal project sustained over centuries.
From dimly lit streets and poorly maintained sidewalks to male-dominated public transport and unwelcoming parks, our cities have long been built for and around men. This isn’t by accident; it’s the result of decades of planning that excluded the voices and needs of women, girls and gender-diverse individuals.
Unfortunately, Pakistan’s urban centres (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta, etc) have ample room for improvement. Despite women making up nearly half the population, their visibility in public and economic life remains limited.