ONE OF the signs of the disproportionate social significance of Filipino families with a member working abroad is their presence in the agenda of surveys. For instance, the Bangko Sentral?s quarterly Consumer Expectations Survey asks households how many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) they have, whether they receive remittances, and how they spend the remittances. From its national sample of 5,643 respondents in 2010Q4, 11.1 percent were OFW families.

Demographics. The presence of an OFW member in the household is a standard backgrounder in the quarterly Social Weather Surveys. In the SWS survey of November 2010, 13.6 percent were OFW families?estimated at 2.56 million OFW families, from a national total of 18.77 million families.

The top 10 overseas locations of the OFWs of the SWS respondent families are: Saudi Arabia (estimated 500,000 OFW families), United Arab Emirates (450,000), United States (340,000), Kuwait (190,000), Canada (170,000), Hong Kong (130,000), Qatar (130,000), Taiwan (110,000), South Korea (80,000), and Singapore (80,000). Note that an OFW family can have members in more than one location.

OFW families are slightly over-represented in Metro Manila (15.3 percent), the Balance of Luzon (15.3 percent), and the Visayas (14.0 percent). They are under-represented in Mindanao (9.0 percent).

They are somewhat more common in the middle-to-upper ABC classes (33.7 percent) and in households headed by a college graduate (21.8 percent). They are less common in the very poor E class (8.1 percent) and in households headed by elementary school dropouts (11.5 percent). What matters is that the masa have a very fair share: 13.0 percent of Class D families. Two out of three OFW families are from Class D.

With many of their male breadwinners abroad, almost half (48 percent) of OFW families are headed by a woman, compared to only one-third (35 percent) of non-OFW families. The national rate of female-headed households is 37 percent.

Economic well-being. On the basis of all SWS economic indicators, OFW families are relatively better off. This is essential, since it is the basic rationale for the decision to work overseas.

In the November 2010 SWS survey, self-rated general poverty was only 33 percent among OFW families, far below the 51 percent among non-OFW families. The national average was 49 percent.

The median home budget that poor OFW families said they needed in order to escape poverty was P10,000 per month. Among poor, non-OFW families, the median needed was P8,000 per month. Thus the standards that poor OFW families set for themselves are higher, but still modest.

On the other hand, self-rated food poverty was only 18 percent among OFW families, or less than half of the 39 percent among non-OFW families. The national average was 36 percent.

The proportion of OFW families experiencing hunger in the previous three months was 11.4 percent (moderate hunger, meaning only once or a few times, was 10.0 percent, and severe hunger, meaning often or always, was 1.4 percent). Among non-OFW families, hunger was at 19.2 percent (15.8 percent moderate plus 3.4 percent severe).

Among adults in OFW families, 30 percent said that their quality of life had improved over the past 12 months, and 25 percent said that it had worsened; thus gainers predominated. In non-OFW families, only 25 percent were gainers whereas 31 percent were losers. This implies a widening gap in quality of life between OFW and non-OFW families.

Looking to the next 12 months, 51 percent of adults in OFW families expected their future quality of life to improve, and 5 percent expected it to worsen. In non-OFW families, optimists were 41 percent and pessimists were 7 percent.

Satisfaction with governance. On certain matters, adults from OFW families give the government higher grades. As to the performance of President Aquino, 75 percent of them were satisfied and 7 percent were dissatisfied, for a net rating of +68. Among those from non-OFW families, 74 percent were satisfied and 11 percent were dissatisfied, for a net rating of +63. The average of the two is P-Noy?s net satisfaction rating of +64 in November 2010.

As to the national government?s general performance, those from OFW families had a net satisfaction of +67, while those from non-OFW families had a net satisfaction of +64.

On foreign relations, the satisfaction of those from OFW families was net +62, while that from non-OFW families was net +54. On fighting graft and corruption, the satisfaction of OFW families was net +25, while that of non-OFW families was net +22.

Yet there are some matters on which OFW families are less generous in rating government performance. On helping the poor, satisfaction of those from OFW families was net +42, while satisfaction of those from non-OFW families was net +48.

As to fighting inflation, satisfaction of those from OFW families was net +4, while satisfaction of those from non-OFW families was net +8. I wonder if this is because OFW families are disadvantaged by appreciation of the peso.

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The figures cited here are from the Fourth Quarter 2010 Social Weather Survey, fielded on Nov. 27-30, 2010, on a national sample of 1,200 households, for a 3 percent national sampling error margin. I thank Malou Laxamana of SWS for the special tabulations used in this column.

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Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.