Abstract

,The importance of this research titled as “A Study of Poor Families in the Philippines” is to be able to find out if the characteristics of the poor in one area is the same or different from another area. This information may help determine the needs of the poor which are necessary in terms of designing redressal programs at the national level to alleviate their plight. Most studies on poverty using the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) data are at the national level, and this study is the first attempt to go down to the city level. The objectives of the study are the following: 1) to determine the similarities and the differences between the poor and nonpoor housheolds; 2) to compare the poor in Metro Manila with their counterpart in the other highly urbanized cities of Baguio, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao; 3) to determine if there are differences among the rural poor of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao; and 4) to determine the implications of the above objectives in terms of poverty alleviation programs and policies. The t test conducted on the different characteristics of the poor and nonpoor resulted in highly significant differences on most of the variables like income, family size, spending patterns, employment characteristics of the household head, education, toilet facility, source of water supply, major sources of income, type of building, tenure status of house and lot, construction materials and ownership of household conveniences. For example, average family size was consistently higher among the poor than the nonpoor. Another example is that on percentages of income on food in 1994 which were: 64% for poor vs. 44% for non-poor of the country; and 63% for poor in Luzon, 68.2% for poor in Visayas, and 65.8% for poor in Mindanao. On the overall, poverty incidence in the Philippines in 1994 was 35.5%. Poverty incidnece in Metro Manila was 8.0%; in highly uirbanized area, poverty incidence rates were: 10.3% in Iloilo city, 23.3% in Bacolod City, 12.2% in Cebu City, 19.4% in Zamboanga City, 35.8% in Cagayan de Oro City, 13.7% in Davao City, and 13.2% in Baguio City.