It can be argued that the income-related benefits from remittances for households are considerably offset by the social harm for families due to separation for long periods at a time. There are serious social costs for families when one or both parents are forced abroad to fu:rd work. The extended physical separation can cause severe stress on the relationship of the spouses with each other and can adversely affect the quality of upbringing of children left behind to be cared for by relatives. This should be considered as setting the outer limits to how far migration should be institutionalized as a generalized source of livelihood rather than for instance a stop-gap or exceptional measure. There is presumably a limit to how many families in the Philippines can have missing parents that, when breached, means unacceptably great harm and trauma to family life at the national level. There are no definite figures for the number of children aged 0 to 14 years left behind by OFW parents and various estimates circulating have ranged from two (2) million to as much as 5.5 million - the high figure is cited in the Guide on Ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and their Families by the International Steering Committee for the Ratification of the Migrants Rights Convention (and is an estimate based on the 2000 Census on Population and Housing). The guide also cites studies that estimate some 15% of Filipino families with children growing up without either a father or a mother. It is also difficult to make generalaations on how long the periods of separation last. The tlpical OFW contract lasts for two years but there do not appear to be any estimates or tracking of how long OFWs themselves are actually abroad. This would have to take into, for instance, account contracts cut short or OFWs entering into consecutive contracts. There likewise do not appear to be any comprehensive tracking studies of frequency and length of parental visits which can vary greatly depending on the travel expenses involved, the legal status of the OFW, the terms of work and other factors. It is often argued that the welfare benefits of remittances for OFW children in terms of greater access to education, health, clothing and other material goods oFset the social costs of parental migration. However such studies are flawed if they only compare 'typical' OFW households with 'tlpical' non-OFW households because, in the Philippine context, the tlpical OFW household certainly has a higher income level than a typical non-OFW household. The more appropriate comparison on which to assess relative welfare is rather between an OFW and a non-OFW household of broadly similar income levels - in which case there is little reason to suppose that the OFW children will indeed come out as better off. Greatly increased overseas employment and remittances have not been accompanied by economic development for the Phitippines as a whole. The country still suffers economic backwardness despite the government's labor export policy since the mid-1970s and greatly increasing migration and remittances in the decades since. The absolute number of Filipinos in poverty continues to rise with a 530,642 increase in the number of poor families between 2000 and 2006 (to 4.7 million poor families) and a 2.1 17