Helping parents, siblings financially is Filipino youth’s top aspiration – report
MANILA, Philippines – Filipino youth’s aspiration to help parents and siblings emerged as their “most important and top-of-mind aspiration,” the State of the Filipino Youth 2021 National Youth Survey showed.
The study revealed that helping parents and siblings financially was the most identified frequently by 72% of the respondents. The respondents were asked to identify up to 3 most important aspirations and life goals out of 13 pre-listed choices.
“This was also the top-of-mind response for a plurality of the respondents, with 38% of them saying this was the most important,” the report said.
The other top reasons included living independently from parents (36%), getting a college degree (29%), starting their own business (28%), and having meaningful work (28%).
The study was done through a partnership between the Youth Leadership for Democracy (YouthLed) and the Social Weather Stations, which conducted the survey among 4,900 Filipino youth aged 15 to 30. The survey had an error margin of +/-1.4% at 95% confidence level for national percentages, with 100 respondents allocated for each administrative region and for each of the 32 YouthLed target areas.
The survey was done from March 14 to 29, 2021, but the results were only published recently.
On personal health, 67% of Filipino youth said that they have good health, which is an improvement from the 51% rating for the same question from a national youth survey conducted in 1996. This is also slightly better compared to the 63% score in the June 2019 study where Filipino adults were asked the same question. Their response to overall personal health was taken at the height of a pandemic, with the youth primarily at home or confined to their local areas.
More inclined toward civic political action online
The survey also revealed that young Filipinos are more inclined toward individual civic political action online and issue-based collective action.
“They are less interested in politics, but more focused on social issues and social change,” the report noted.
The study said that while there’s social awareness among Filipino youth on issues that matter, the “challenge is shifting engagement from individual civic action to participating effectively in collective action and in-person action when the circumstances call for it.”
A majority of the respondents said that they have not engaged and will never be open to engaging in other civil and political actions, regardless of the situation. These activities include the following: signing or sharing an online petition on a political subject at 61%; contacting an elected government official regarding an issue or concern at 52%; running for public office at 72%; joining a political group on social media at 67%; joining or volunteering for a political party at 61%; and taking part in a political demonstration or strike at 85%.
Access the full study below.
– Rappler.com