ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the demographic and socioeconomic profile of the elderly in the Philippines with the goal of generating relevant polices and programs for older Filipinos. It discusses that population projections are based on the medium variant of official national projections and those prepared by the United Nations for the Philippines. Several additional demographic characteristics of elderly in the Philippines must be considered when discussing their needs and the development of national policy for older adults: sex ratio, life expectancy, marital status, and residence patterns. Most of the elderly lifetime migrants transferred from their birthplace to their last address between the ages of 20 and 49. The chapter describes selected socioeconomic characteristics of older women and men—their educational attainment and occupation, living arrangements, health and leisure, social security, and pension schemes—in order to generate relevant policies and programs. The constancy of intergenerational support is deeply entrenched in Filipino family values and is not expected to fade easily.
