In solidarity with the celebration of the National Family Week this Sept. 21-28, UP Diliman (èAV) Department of Home Economics Education (DHEEd) shares a study conducted by their faculty regarding Filipino family well-being (FWB).
The family is considered as the primary social institution for providing basic needs and care for its members. It is essential to a person’s well-being and is considered the foundation of a good society.
To ensure proper attention is given to the Filipino family’s well-being, four DHEEd faculty members conducted the research Conceptualization of Filipino Family Well-being.
The team composed of Consuelo T. Chua, PhD, LPT, Florenda S. Gabriel, PhD†, Joanne R. Bantang, PhD, LPT, and Aurora S. Llige, PhD, believes “this is a very important research initiative that will contribute significantly to our collective efforts in helping Filipino families achieve a better quality of life.”
Presently, there are few studies on FWB from the Southeast Asian context compared to their Western counterpart, and even fewer studies on Filipino FWB.
According to the study, “while Filipino FWB shares some commonalities with Western concepts, it is distinguished by its strong emphasis on children’s aspirations, the legacy of education, and the central role of faith and contentment.”
The team identified resource adequacy; a comfortable lifestyle; financial security and stability; good health of family members; good family relationships; good parenting; virtuous family living; and family satisfaction and contentment, as the eight core dimensions of Filipino FWB with specific culturally-grounded indicators.
Resource adequacy pertains to the family’s ability to acquire or access basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education. This indicates that the family “has sufficient food to eat every day, can send children to school, has access to medical and health needs, has sufficient resources to meet daily needs, [has] adequate clothing, and has a decent and safe dwelling space.”
Comfortable lifestyleis the family’s capacity to enjoy simple pleasures, have leisure, and the choice to acquire things that they want. This means the family “can provide the simple wishes of children; has choice over basic needs; can enjoy simple vacations, leisure activities, and simple luxuries; can afford to celebrate special occasions (like Christmas and birthdays); and can have sufficient time to rest and relax.”
Financial security and stability refers to income regularity or the capacity to acquire assets (like a house and a car), and savings for emergencies. The family “has a regular and stable source of income, has financial resources to acquire assets, and has enough savings for emergencies and future needs.”
Good health of family members refers to the general physical, mental, and emotional health of all family members, often associated with “health is wealth.” This indicates that “all family members are generally healthy and there is absence of long-term illness in the family.”
Good family relationships focus on positive, loving, and harmonious bonds. For many Filipinos, harmony and peace within the home is more vital than material wealth. Here, the family “can solve internal problems and challenges; has a positive, loving, and harmonious relationship; is complete (not broken); spends time together; members help each other; has positive communication; and is happy as a whole.”
Good parenting is “the ability to raise morally upright children and provide guidance. A distinct Filipino priority is enabling children to finish a college education, viewed as a ticket out of poverty. The parents “provide proper guidance to children; serve as good role models to children; are able to raise good children; and can enable children to finish their education.”
Virtuous family living means the family “has faith in God (or a Supreme Being) and practices sound moral values.” The family also engages in charitable acts and refrains from vices.
Finally, family satisfaction and contentment refers to the family’s “general satisfaction with one’s standard of living, emphasizing that well-being can be achieved through contentment with a simple life even if resources are not abundant.”
The study adopted the Philippine Statistics Authority’s definition of family, described as “a group of persons usually living together and composed of the head and other persons related to the head by blood, marriage or adoption. It includes both the nuclear and extended family.”
In their research, the team conducted “in-depth interviews of 53 fathers and 10 mothers of Filipino families. Thirty-five of the families resided in different Metro Manila areas, while 28 came from nearby rural areas including Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, and Rizal. Among the families, 19 were low-income, 32 were middle-income, and 12 were high-income.”
Furthermore, “the sample size of 63 participants was more than sufficient to satisfy data saturation, since after analyzing only 60% of the interview transcripts, key terms were already observed to constantly repeat with each additional analysis.”
In the study, “the participants’ family size ranged from three to 12 members, with most families having less than six members. The respondents’ number of children ranged from zero to 10, with the majority having one to three children.”
The research was funded by the èAV Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development through the Outright Research Grant, and was published at the International Journal of Home Economics.
- Share: