SWS: 39% of Filipinos say their lives improved over past year

MANILA, Philippines — Thirty-nine percent of Filipino adults believe their lives have improved compared to 12 months ago, according to a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The survey revealed that 39 percent said their quality of life improved (gainers), 23 percent said it got worse (losers), and 37 percent claimed it remained the same (unchanged).

READ: SWS: 44% of Filipinos see improved quality of life in next 12 months

SWS said the survey was conducted from June 23 to July 1 using face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults — 600 in Balance Luzon (areas outside Metro Manila) and 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Around 13 percent of the respondents were in Metro Manila, 45 percent in Balance Luzon, 19 percent in Visayas, and 23 percent in Mindanao.

Of the total number of respondents, 55 percent reside in urban areas, while 41 percent are in rural areas.

The participants were asked to compare their current quality of life to 12 months ago and were given the following choices: “Mabuti kaysa noon (better than before), kapareho ng dati (same as before), and mas masama kaysa noon (worse than before).”

“The sampling error margins are ±2.5% for national percentages, ±4.0% for Balance Luzon, and ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao,” SWS said.

Aside from this, the June 2024 survey also revealed that about 58 percent of Filipino families rated themselves as poor, 12 percent believe that they are on the borderline (between poor and not poor), and 30 percent rated themselves as not poor.

“The self-rated poor are those who belong to households whose heads rated their family as poor (or mahirap),” the SWS said.