MANILA, Philippines — More than half or 57 percent of Filipinos said that their life got worse in the past 12 months, according to a survey released by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) on Tuesday.
The non-commissioned survey was conducted from September 12 to 16, 2021, using face-to-face interviews with 1,200 respondents aged 18 years old and above, nationwide — 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
The SWS asked respondents the following question: “Comparing your quality of life these days to how it was 12 months ago, would you say that your quality of life is better now than before, same as before, or worse now than before?”
Majority or 57 percent said their quality of life got worse, only 13 percent said it got better, and 29 percent said it remained the same resulting in a net gainer score of “extremely low” at -44. This is 13 points lower than the “very low” net gainer score of -31 in the last survey results in June 2021.
Meanwhile, net gainer scores worsened in all areas. It was lowest in Metro Manila at -51, which the SWS tagged as “catastrophic.” This is 21 points below the -30 recorded in the last survey.
The score also went down in Mindanao by 16 points from “very low” to “extremely low” or -31 to -47.
The same happened to Balance Luzon, which was down by 14 points from -27 to -41. Visayas’ score, on the other hand, remained “extremely low” but went down by 6 points from -40 to -46.
Net gainer scores also worsened for all education groups except college graduates compared to June 2021.
It worsened from “very low” to “extremely low” among non-elementary graduates, down by 9 points from -37 to -46; from “extremely low” to “catastrophic” among elementary graduates, down by 19 points from -42 to -31; it also worsened from “very low” to “extremely low” among junior high school graduates, down by 16 points from -30 to -46.
However, the net gainer score eased from “very low” to “low” among college graduates, which went up by 4 points from -30 to -26.
The survey had sampling error margins of ±3 percent for national percentages and ±6 percent for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, said the SWS.
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