PH incomes can match Europe level—in 2050
As cities in Asia continue to progress, incomes in Manila are projected to be “comparable” to those of an average European citizen.
The catch is that it won’t be happening anytime soon.
England-based research and advisory company Oxford Economics said in a report released on Wednesday night that it expects Manila residents’ incomes approaching the European level by 2050, as it highlighted the rapid ascent of Asian cities within global value chains and the “closing” gaps in living standards between emerging and developed economies.
Oxford Economics associate director Liam Sides and senior economist Christopher Reynolds said Manila is projected to add more than a million jobs in business services from 2025 to 2050.
In cities like the Philippine capital, they said such roles have expanded far beyond call-center work to include higher-skilled positions in IT, software development, data analytics and other technical fields, offering both better pay and career growth.
High-value services
Sides and Reynolds said three other Asian cities—Delhi and Mumbai in India and Shenzhen, China—are expected to see similar gains, reflecting a broader shift in the region toward high-value service employment.
While job growth in business services has also been strong across the Middle East, the two analysts said it was Asian markets “that have dominated growth in business services since 2010—and they will continue to do so.”
“Indeed, cities across Asia are becoming both significantly more populous and wealthier. In terms of the overall increase in high-income households between 2025 and 2050, Asian cities take eight of the top 10 spots globally,” they added.
Wide gap
Latest figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority show that the average annual income of families in Manila reached P482,490 in 2023, well above the national average of P353,230.
The income increase in Manila marked a 16.7-percent rise from 2021, the last year the triennial household survey was conducted. That slightly outpaced the 15-percent growth recorded nationwide.
Meanwhile, families in the wider National Capital Region earned an average of P513,520 in 2023, nearly 23-percent higher than in 2021.
The European Commission’s Eurostat policy department puts the average income of its residents at €37,860 a year (equivalent to P2.6 million at the current exchange rate).
Laggard
Among nine major Asian cities analyzed in the report, Manila will be the slowest to catch up.
Estimates from Oxford Economics showed that Manila’s projected income growth would make it “increasingly comparable,” but not fully on par with European averages, over the next 25 years.
On the other hand, Shanghai, Beijing, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Shenzhen, Jakarta and Mumbai are all expected to surpass average European city living standards, while Ho Chi Minh City could reach parity.
In India, Hyderabad and Bengaluru are expected to surpass the European average for personal incomes before the end of the next decade, with Mumbai following before the end of 2050.
Jakarta is projected to follow a similar trajectory, supported by Indonesia’s abundant natural resources and its relatively young, highly skilled workforce.
“Overall, these shifts represent a dramatic reversal, with people in China, India, and Indonesia returning to more similar levels of income relative to Europe, as they had before the Industrial Revolution,” Sides and Reynolds said.
“Convergence in global living standards is not inevitable,” they added.
