51% of Pinoys ‘very happy’ with love life

A LITTLE over half of Filipinos are “very happy” with their love life, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released on the eve of Valentine’s Day.

The poll conducted from December 16 to 19 among 1,440 adults nationwide

showed 51 percent of Filipinos said they were very happy with their love life, while 36 percent said they could be happier, and 13 percent said they did not have a love life.

“This compares with 57 percent who said their love life was very happy, 29 percent who said it could be happier, and 14 percent who said they do not have a love life in 2017,” SWS said.

the survey in 2002, the fraction of people who said their love life was “very happy” was at 58 percent.

“It fell to 46 percent in 2004, and recovered to 50s levels from 2010 to 2012, reaching a record- high 59 percent in 2011. It declined to 49 percent in 2014 before bouncing to 51 percent in 2015, 55 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2017,”

Since 2002, the proportion

of those saying their love lives could be happier has been at 30 percent, except in 2004 and 2014 when it was at a recordhigh 44 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

“It reached its lowest level of 29 percent in 2017,” it added.

Meanwhile, the proportion of those who have no love life ranged from 9 percent to 14 percent from 2002 to 2018, with the highest level observed in 2016 and 2017.

The new survey also showed that 50 percent of adult Filipinos believe that age gap matters in a relationship, while 41 percent believe it does not. The remaining 9 percent are undecided on the matter.

SWS said “opinions about age gap hardly vary among men and women.”

More older men in the 55-years-and-above bracket believe that age gap matters — 54 percent compared to 38 percent who said otherwise.

In the 18-to-24 age bracket, only 45 percent said age gap

mattered, while 40 percent said it did not matter.

For women, however, more of the younger ones believe that age gap matters.

In the 18- to- 24 bracket, 65 percent said it mattered in a relationship, while 33 said it did not.

Forty-eight percent of women aged 35 to 44 and 45 to 55 said age gap mattered, while more women between the ages of 25 and 34 say it did not (49 percent).

In general, women are not willing to have a relationship with someone 10 years younger than them, with 58 percent of respondents saying they were not willing and 23 percent saying they were willing.

Forty- eight percent of men, on the other hand, said they were willing to have a relationship with someone 10 years younger.

The survey also showed women across all age groups are more willing than their male counterparts to have a relationship with someone older.

Majority of women aged 35 to 44 are willing to have a relationship with older men (60 percent) while only 48 percent of men in the same age range said they were willing to have a relationship with older women.

Those who said they were “very happy” with their love life was highest among married men (64 percent) and women (59 percent).

Among women, it was also highest among those who are married at 59 percent, followed by those with a live-in partner at 56 percent and those who are single at 20 percent.

Men aged 25 and above, and women aged 25 to 34, also have a happier love life than those in other age groups, the survey showed.

The survey, conducted using face- to- face interview, has sampling error margins of ±2.6 percent for national percentages and ± 5 percent each for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao.