A NEW global survey from the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” in Washington, D.C., shows that people in emerging-market countries are catching up to advanced economies in terms of life satisfaction.
The survey, released last week, asked respondents to place themselves on the “ladder of life” on a scale of zero to 10. For example, people were asked how satisfied they were with their health and the safety of their neighborhood.
Not surprisingly, the richer the nation, the higher the overall life satisfaction. But it was not necessarily income that influenced the answers. It came down to having more “stuff.” The amount of household goods had four times the effect on positive and high survey scores as did income. The amount of things that a person owns had 10 times as much impact on the answers as did the quality of a person’s job.
Being married or single did not significantly influence the final score. However, age plays a big role. The most satisfied were the 20- to 25-year-olds, followed by the 75-to-80 age group. The least satisfied were the 50- to 55-year-olds, perhaps, because they have to take care of their young adult children and worry about their elderly parents.
In order to make general comparisons between countries, Pew Research consolidated the results down to what percentage of the population rated their life satisfaction in various areas as seven, eight, nine or 10. The global leader—with 79 percent of the answers being seven, eight, nine or 10—is Mexico, followed by Israel (76 percent). The United States comes in at 65 percent, while the Philippines is at a low 38 percent.
The Philippines’s overall satisfaction score comes in slightly below those of all our neighbors. Our highest satisfaction score—80 percent—was in “Religious life”, while the lowest—54 percent—was in “Standard of living”.
Perhaps, the most disturbing thing about this is the Filipinos’ perception of progress over the last five years. Only 41 percent of our people think our situation is better today than five years ago, as opposed to 56 percent of Thais and 59 percent of the Vietnamese. More depressing is that 31 percent of our people think things are worse today than five years ago, in contrast to only 19 percent of Malaysians and 27 percent of Indonesians.
There seems to be a big disconnect from what the government is telling the people about the nation’s progress and what the people are telling Pew Research.
What do we think about our country’s and our personal future? Sixty-eight percent believe that, in five years, our situation will be better than today. Only 18 percent think that there will be no improvement, while 11 percent think our situation will be worse.
Overall, compared to other nationalities, Filipinos may be more realistic about their life situation, or maybe we are just inherently more cautious and have lower expectations.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano