45% of Filipinos see quality of life to improve in next 12 months

FILE: Passengers queue up for bus and jeepney rides along Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City on Monday (Jan. 23, 2023). Commuters are constantly reminded to board or get off public utility vehicles only at designated loading and unloading bays. (PNA photo by Joey O. Razon)

MANILA – Forty-five percent of adult Filipinos are optimistic that their lives will improve over the next 12 months, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The poll conducted from March 26 to 29, 2023 also found that 42 percent of the respondents believe that their quality of life will stay the same, while only 6 percent said it will worsen.

The remaining 7 percent did not give an answer.

The net personal optimism score was +38, which was classified by SWS as “very high”.

The SWS said the latest net optimism score was six points below the “excellent” +44 recorded in December 2022, noting that the 6-point drop was due to decreases in all areas.

Optimism fell by 6 points from +43 to +37 in Balance Luzon, by 10 points from +37 to +27 in the Visayas, and by 4 points from +49 to +45 in Metro Manila.

The score hardly moved in Mindanao from +48 to +47.

The survey showed that net personal optimism stayed “excellent” among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies, although down from +52 to +45.

It also stayed excellent among those who either finished junior high school, had some vocational schooling, had some senior high school, finished senior high school, completed vocational school, or attended some college, although down slightly from +46 to +42.

Net personal optimism fell for those who either finished elementary school or had some high school education from +40 in December 2022 to +35 in March 2022, as well as those who had no formal education or some elementary education from +35 to +28.

The March 2023 survey also found that net personal optimism was higher among non-hungry families at +39, and households who rated themselves as not poor at +50.

The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide. It had sampling error margins of ±2.8 percent for national percentages, ±5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.