Most thankful for good health, family, being alive
A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted from Dec. 8 to 11 revealed that 73 percent of adult Filipinos are expecting this year’s Christmas to be “happy” (masaya), while 6 percent are anticipating it to be “sad” (malungkot).
Meanwhile, 21 percent of Filipinos are expecting this Christmas to be neither happy nor sad.
“The 73 percent expecting a happy Christmas is the same as in 2022 and 23 points above the record-low 50 percent in 2020. It is still six points below the pre-pandemic level of 79 percent in 2019,” SWS said in its report released on Dec. 23.
Expectation of happy Christmas hardly changes across all areas, educational levels
SWS noted that for 2023, those expecting a happy Christmas were highest in the Visayas at 78 percent, followed by Mindanao at 74 percent, Balance Luzon at 70 percent, and Metro Manila at 72 percent.
Compared to 2022, the expectation of a happy Christmas stayed at 78 percent in the Visayas, while it hardly changed from 75 percent in Mindanao, 71 percent in Balance Luzon, and 71 percent in Metro Manila.
Those expecting a happy Christmas also hardly changed across educational levels, SWS said.
Compared to 2022, those expecting a happy Christmas hardly moved from 74 percent to 75 percent among college graduates, from 74 percent to 75 percent among junior high school graduates, from 73 percent to 71 percent among elementary graduates, and from 68 percent to 64 percent among non-elementary graduates.
Filipinos most thankful for good health, family, being alive
Grouping the responses to the open-ended question, “As Christmas and the end of the year approaches, may I know what one or two things are you most thankful for in your life right now?,” the December 2023 survey found 51 percent most thankful for “good health,” 29 percent for “family,” and 16 percent for “being alive.”
The respondents were allowed to give up to two answers.
Following the top three responses were job/career/income (10 percent), food to eat (8 percent), coping with daily hardships (8 percent), prosperity (5 percent), all the blessings (3 percent), education (3 percent), peace and safety (3 percent), and God (2 percent).
Meanwhile, 1 percent of the responses were related to lovelife/spouse, motorcycle/vehicle, surviving an illness or surgery, happy life, house, financial support, having no worries or problems, and material things.
Less than 1 percent answered being able to help others (0.3 percent), while the rest of the other responses consisted of 1 percent.
The remaining 2 percent did not give an answer.
The fourth quarter 2023 SWS survey was fielded through face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide.
It has sampling error margins of ±2.8 percent for national percentages, and ±5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
