THE number of poor families and individuals in Davao Region has decreased, with poverty incidence lower in 2021 compared to 2018 and 2015, according to the regional Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-Davao) on Monday, October 24.
The latest poverty statistics of PSA showed that the poverty incidence among families in Davao Region is 11.9 percent for the year 2021 which equates to around 165,420 families considered poor or earning below the region’s poverty threshold of P11,709.
“This means that about 119 out of 1,000 families in the region had incomes below the amount needed to buy basic food and non-food needs,” said Randolph Gales, officer-in-charge of PSA-Davao.
However, this is already a drastic improvement to the poverty incidence in the region last 2018 and 2015 which was 13.6 percent and 18 percent respectively. In 2018, there were 174,740 poor families, and 212,030 in 2015.
“This is 9,000 families lower than the estimate in 2018 and about 47,000 families lower than the estimate in 2015,” Gales added.
In terms of per province, Davao Occidental has the highest poverty incidence among families in Davao Region at 34.5 percent, followed by Davao Oriental at 21.8 percent, and Davao de Oro at 17.7 percent.
The rest of the provinces, including highly urbanized Davao City, have less than 15 percent poverty incidence.
Meanwhile, the poverty incidence among the population in Davao Region also improved to 16.8 percent from 18.8 percent in 2018 and 23.5 percent in 2015. This means that there are fewer individuals considered poor.
The 16.8 percent poverty incidence means that 168 out of 1,000 Dabawenyos earn an income lower than the poverty threshold. This also translates to a total of 900,170 poor Dabawenyos in 2021.
In 2018 and 2015, the magnitude of poor individuals is 965,900 and 1,148,780 respectively. This means that the 2021 data is approximately 66,000 persons fewer compared to 2018 and 249,000 fewer compared to 2015.
Compared to other regions in the country, Davao Region is the 11th region with the highest poverty incidence among the population, which is slightly below the national figure.
In the entire country, poverty incidence among the population is 18.1 percent or 19,992,250 poor individuals while the poverty incidence among families is 13.2 percent or 3,496,460 poor families. ICM