SWS: More Filipinos back legalization of divorce

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IN A NUTSHELL: 53 percent of Filipino adults agree to legalization of divorce •  32 percent disagree • legalization of divorce ‘very strong’ among women

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More than half of Filipinos agree that divorce should be legalized for “irreconcilably separated couples,” a nationwide Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey taken in the last quarter of 2017 found.

In the survey conducted December 8 to 16, 2017, the SWS sought the respondents’ responses to the statement: “Married couples who have already separated and cannot reconcile anymore should be allowed to divorce so that they can get legally married again.”

The SWS, in a media release on Friday, revealed that 53 percent of Filipino adults agreed with the statement, 32 percent disagree, while 15 percent were undecided, resulting to a net agreement score of +21, classified as “moderately strong.”

The polling firm added that support for legalization of divorce was “very strong” among women with live-in partners, men with live-in partners and widowed or separated men, the survey firm noted.

“Support for the legalization of divorce used to be split when SWS first surveyed it in 2005: 43 percent agreed, 12 percent were undecided, and 45 percent disagreed, for a neutral net agreement of -2,” the SWS noted.

“The question was asked for the second time six years after in 2011 and obtained moderately strong support. When it was asked for the third time three years after in 2014, it went to very strong and stayed at moderately strong up to 2017,” it said.

The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults, aged 18 years old and above, nationwide. It has a margin of error of ±3% nationwide, ±4% for Luzon, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao, the SWS said./ac