More than 60 percent of Filipino adults said their quality of life got worse in the past 12 months, the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.
 
The nationwide survey done face-to-face for the first time among 1,500 respondents from November 21-to 25 found that 62 percent said their quality-of-life got worse (“Losers”), 24 percent said it remains the same (“Unchanged”), and 14 said it got better (“Gainers”), compared to a year ago.
 
With a Net Gainers score of -48 (percentage of Gainers minus percentage of Losers), SWS classified it as extremely low (–49 to –40).   

This latest score according to the SWS, is 28 points up from the catastrophic -76 in September 2020, softening SWS’s worst survey trend that started during the COVID-19 crisis when Net Gainers fell to catastrophic levels of -78 in May 2020 and -72 in July 2020.

SWS shared that the survey question on quality-of-life trends in the past 12 months has been fielded 139 times since April 1983.

Meanwhile, Net Gainers eased from catastrophic to extremely low in Balance Luzon, up by 32 points from -75 to -43, and in Mindanao, up by 26 points from -74 to -48 compared to September 2020.

However, the pollster noted that it rose but stayed catastrophic in Metro Manila, up by 21 points from -76 to -55, and the Visayas, up by 24 points from -80 to -56.

SWS also found that hunger is significantly greater among Losers than among Gainers and Unchanged: involuntary hunger was 19 percent (15 percent moderate, four percent severe) among Losers, compared to 12 percent (10 percent moderate, two percent severe) among Gainers, and 11 percent (seven percent moderate, three percent severe, correctly rounded) among the Unchanged.

It noted that compared to September 2020, Hunger fell by 15 points among Losers (from 34 percent), by 11 points among Gainers (from 23 percent), and by six points among Unchanged (from 17 percent).
 
On the other hand, SWS said that the Net Gainers score has been historically lower among the Poor than among the Borderline Poor and Not Poor. This means the Poor have more Losers and fewer Gainers than the Borderline Poor and Not Poor.  

The Self-Rated Poor are those who belong to households whose heads rated their family as poor or “mahirap”. This status is then adopted for all members of the household.

However, from December 2019 to November 2020, the Net Gainers score fell for all groups.

Compared to December 2019, among the Poor, the Net Gainers score fell from +8 (high) to -57 (catastrophic). Among the Borderline Poor, it fell from +27 (excellent) to -42 (extremely low). Among the Not Poor, it fell from +30 (excellent) to -37 (extremely low).