29% of Pinoys say quality of life improved, 25% say it got worse —SWS

Twenty-nine percent of Filipino adults believed their quality of life improved compared to a year ago, results of a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

Twenty-five percent, however, said their quality of life got worse, while 46% said it was the same, based on the results of survey conducted on March 26 to March 29, 2023.

SWS said this resulted in a net gainers score of +5, which was classified as “high.”

“The March 2023 Net Gainer score was just 3 points below the high +8 in December 2022. However, it is still 13 points below the pre-pandemic level of very high +18 in December 2019,” SWS said.

Compared to December 2022, net gainers declined from “very high” to “high” in Metro Manila from +18 to +2.

The same happened in Mindanao, where net gainers fell from +10 to +6. It also decreased from “fair” to “mediocre” in Visayas from -4 to -14.

On the other hand, it remained “very high” in Balance Luzon, up by 2 points from +10 to +12.

Net gainers also rose from “very high” to “excellent” among college graduates from +18 in December 2022, to +20 in March 2023.

It improved from “fair” to “high” among elementary graduates from net zero to +1, but fell from “very high” to “high” among junior high school graduates from +13 to +7.

Meanwhile, it stayed “fair” among non-elementary graduates, although down by 3 points from -2 to -5.

Hunger

The March 2023 survey further revealed that 9.8% of Filipino families, or an estimated 2.7 million, experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months. This means they were hungry and had nothing to eat at all.

Compared to December 2022, the net gainers score went down from “very high” to “high” among the non-hungry families from +10 to +5.

It, however, rose from “fair” to “high” among overall hungry families from -7 to +1; and among moderately hungry families from -4 to +4.

It also increased from “low” to “mediocre” among severely hungry families from -21 to -18.

Self-rated poor

The recent survey also found that 51% of Filipino families rated themselves as “poor;” 30% rated themselves as “borderline;” and 19% rated themselves as “not poor.”

“The Self-Rated Poor are those who belong to households whose heads rated their family as poor or mahirap. This status is then adopted for all members of the household,” SWS explained.

The net gainers remained “very high” among the non-poor from +15 to +16. It also stayed “very high” among the borderline poor, despite going down from +16 to +13.

It fell from “high” to “low” among the poor from +1 to -5.

The March 2023 SWS poll used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide. It has sampling error margins of ±2.8% for national percentages, and ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. —KBK, GMA Integrated News