SWS: 46% of Filipinos believe quality of life will improve in 12 months

MANILA, Philippines — Almost half of Filipino adults think their quality of life will improve in the next 12 months, a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey released Thursday showed.

Based on the survey results from June 28 to July 1, 46 percent of Filipinos aged 18 and above are classified as “optimists” or think their lives will improve.

On the other hand, five percent of the survey respondents were classified as “pessimists” as they believed their lives would worsen. Forty-four percent think life will stay the same, while the remaining five percent did not answer.

According to the SWS, the Net Personal Optimism score obtained from the survey is +41 and is considered as “excellent” in their criteria. This is three points higher than the March 2023 survey about the same topic.

This Net Personal Optimism score is the percentage of optimists subtracted by the percentage of pessimists.

The SWS indicated in their report that the score is classified as “excellent” when it is +40 and above; “very high” when it is between +30 and +39; “high” when it is between +20 and +29; and “fair” when it is between +10 to +19.

“The 3-point increase in the national Net Personal Optimism score between March 2023 and June 2023 was due to increases in the Visayas and Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside of Metro Manila), combined with a steady score in Metro Manila and a decline in Mindanao,” the SWS said in its report.

As listed in the results, below are the changes in the Net Personal Optimism score between the March 2023 and June 2023 survey:

• Visayas: +27 to +39 (high to very high)
• Balance Luzon: +37 to +44 (very high to excellent)
• Metro Manila: +45 to +41 (remained excellent)
• Mindanao: +47 to +36 (excellent to very high)

Educational attainment

The survey further found that Net Personal Optimism is higher among college graduates with a +50 score, and high school graduates with a +47 score. Both are classified as excellent.

The two were followed by elementary graduates with a very high score of +32, then non-elementary graduates with a high score of +29.

Gainers vs losers

Meanwhile, the survey also showed that “gainers” who said their life is currently better than 12 months ago have a higher score than “losers” who said life got worse.

Gainers have a Net Personal Optimism score of +65, which is excellent, while losers have a score of +18, which is fair.

Filipino adults who think nothing has changed in their quality of life have a score of +35. It is classified as very high.

Hunger

The SWS also noted Net Personal Optimism is higher among “not hungry” families than those who are “moderately hungry” and “severely hungry.”

The SWS said “not hungry” families did not experience hunger in the past three months. They have a +42 score, classified as excellent.

Families who experienced moderate hunger or those who experienced hunger only once or a few times in the last three months had a very high score of +34.

Those who were often or always hungry in the last three months, considered “severely hungry families,” had a fair score of +17.

Self-rated poorness

Lastly, the survey result shows that the Net Personal Optimism of Filipino adults who are not poor is at excellent levels of +54.

Those who rated themselves as being on the borderline of being poor and not had a score of +46, which is also excellent.

The score of those who consider themselves poor is +31. It is classified as very high.

A total of 1,500 Filipino adults nationwide responded to the survey, the SWS noted. It had a ±2.5 percent sampling error margin.

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