MANILA, Philippines — Thirty-nine percent of Filipinos said that their lives improved towards the end of 2019, a recently conducted survey found.
According to the Social Weather Stations' Fourth Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey, the 39% who reported that their lives improved throughout the past year were termed by SWS as Gainers, while the remaining 21% saying their lives worsened in the last 12 months were coined "Losers."
The survey, which was carried out on December 13-16, yielded an overall a Net Gainers score of +18, a new high over the previously reported +11 in September, +13 in June and +17 in March.
Most notably, the full report said that the amount of Net Gainers rose in all areas, in all education groups and among Self-Rated Poor and Non-Poor Filipinos.
Self-Rated Poor was defined in the survey as "those who belong to households whose heads rated their family as poor or mahirap." Once the label was self-rated, the status was adopted for all members of a household.
Adults expecting their personal quality of life to improve in the next 12 months were labelled "Personal Optimists" as Net Personal Optimism reportedly rose in Luzon and the Visayas, but fell in other areas as decreases were recorded with a four-point drop in Metro Manila, and a decrease by one point in Mindanao.
Additionally, Net Personal Optimism went up in all education groups except high school grads.
Economic optimism up
Another category, Economic Optimism, which was defined as the sentiment of adults saying the Philippine economy will improve in the next 12 months, was said to have generally gone up in all areas, as its net rating went up by 10 points to an “Excellent” +38.
Net Economic Optimism also rose among all education groups with the exception of elementary school dropouts.
The survey's full report noted that the national Net Gainers score was a result of generally positive responses as the additional seven points in December 2019 were due to increases of +10 points in Luzon, +7 points in the Visayas, +4 points in Metro Manila, and +1 point in Mindanao.
Since 1983, only 9% of Net Gainers scores were recorded to be within the "Very High" classification range of +10 to +19 or better.