MAKATI CITY, Philippines — Extreme reliance on money from Filipinos overseas hasn’t helped the country get out of the poverty rut and may even hobble the poor’s income capability, says an economist.
Using government’s triennial Family Income and Expenditures Survey, University of the Philippines economist Ernesto Pernia said in a research that remittances from overseas Filipino workers may be contributing to the persistence of high inequality in the country.
The 2003 and 2006 datasets of the FIES saw the total Gini coefficient (or the measure of inequality of wealth) showed it hardly changing: 0.4605 Gini coefficient in 2003 to 0.4580 in 2006.
As overseas employment and permanent settlement will continue to persist in the Philippines, Pernia said remittances “could result to a further worsening of income inequality". [Read more]
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