They say that life begins at 40.

I am writing this during my fortieth birthday and am still wondering why people think that this milestone is significant.

When I turned 30, the age of 40 seemed so far away back then—a distant (and a bit dreaded) eventuality. Now it is just another decade (or so I would like to downplay). For some, being 40 is indeed a turning point for their careers or business, or worse, it marks the point where their bones start to creak and their backs begin to hurt.

Forty is significant in many situations. It is significant in religious ceremonies since Christ walked the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. We hold funeral vigils for forty days. Normal gestational period is around 40 weeks from conception. We make countdowns for the top 40 songs in radio. For periods slightly longer than a month, fourty days is a convenient milestone for many. There is even the tale of Ali Baba and the fourty thieves.

They say life begins at 40.

With a life expectancy at birth for the Philippines of 68.99 for males and 75.03 for females, forty would already be marking more than two thirds of one’s entire life. Turning 40 would now mark the entry into one’s last third of your life.

Looking at the Philippine age distribution pyramid at 2020 indicates that most of Filipinos would belong to the 40 and below age groups in the next decade. An age distribution pyramid is a graph of the number of individuals per age decade. Right now, estimates show that we have more children below 10 than older age decades. This is expected to taper off in the next few years causing the number of individuals in their thirties, twenties and children below 10 to more or less equal making the pyramid look more like an an inverted cup. This expected increase of Filipinos in their prime is the basis of the prediction that we will be one of the emerging economies in the next few decades.

This distribution implies more employable persons in their youth when they are most productive. Our situation is different when compared to other countries where the pyramid is now inverted with more elderly in their national populations. Affluent societies that were able to extend their life spans are now facing difficulties since their health care institutions are ill-equipped to deal with such a situation. For example, many cities in Japan face difficulty in repopulating their labor force to do and continue productive work such as farming and factory jobs.

Even our situation is worrisome since the bulk of our population would now be faced with a greater pressure to compete with each other for limited jobs. Some would rather address the issue of population control (as some advocates of the RH bill are wont to do) rather than tackle the problem of creating more jobs in the country. Yet we should also stand for the provision of maternal health and child care for all since is required for a healthy country. As the reproductive health bill becomes law, we should not be complacent in providing services, jobs and opportunities to all.

With this balooning number of productive individuals, we as a country should also prepare by creating the jobs here in the country. Domestic productivity comes from a stable labor force and a stable economy providing jobs for them. Once we fail to create industries to hold our people at home, we will lose our creative and productive forces and our capacity to build our future.

They say life begins at 40.

In the end, being fourty is just an arbitrary milestone in one’s entire life. One can always pick 39 or 41 and make it as significant as any other year. Whether you are 20 or 30 or 40 is not the point of it all. What is important is in making each year of our existence meaningful to others and devoting more efforts in changing the current situation to a much better one.

Dr. Tapang is the chairperson of AGHAM-Advocates of Science and Technology for the People. He just turned 40 yesterday.