34% of Filipinos say their quality of life improved from a year ago
MORE THAN 30% of adult Filipinos said their quality of life had improved from a year ago, according to the Social Weather Station’s (SWS) 4th quarter 2022 survey.
Citing its Dec. 10-14 survey released on Wednesday, SWS said 34% of adult Filipinos believed their life was better than twelve months before while 26% said it got worse.
The remaining 39% said their quality of life was the same.
The net gainer score was up from the “fair levels” of net zero in October and -2 in June and April last year, SWS said.
“However, it is still 10 points below the pre-pandemic level of very high +18 in December 2019.”
SWS said the eight-point increase in the national score between October and December was due to increases in all areas, especially in the country’s south.
The net gainer score was “very high” in the capital region — compared to the “high” score in October — as it increased by nine points from +9 to +18, SWS said.
It was also very high in the rest of Luzon as its score rose by two points from +8 to +10,
“It rose from mediocre to fair in the Visayas, up by 9 points from -13 to -4,” SWS added. “It rose sharply from mediocre to very high in Mindanao, up by 21 points from -11 to +10.”
According to the December 2022 survey, 11.8% of Filipino families, or an estimated 3 million, experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.
The net gainer score was very high among those who are not hungry and rose to fair from mediocre among the overall hungry families, the pollster said. “However, it fell from mediocre to low among the severely hungry.”
More than half or 51% of Filipino families rated themselves as poor in the survey, SWS said.
Thirty-one percent considered themselves as borderline poor, while 19% rated themselves as not poor, it added.
“The Net Gainers score has been historically lower among the Poor than among the Borderline Poor and Not Poor,” it noted. “This means the Poor have more Losers and fewer Gainers than the Borderline Poor and Not Poor.” — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza