Quality of life in selected rural barrios in Southern Luzon, Philippines

Abstract

This study focused on the “quality of life” in selected coconut-producing communities in Southern Luzon, Phillippines. Couched in a human ecology perspective, the major proposition states that the quality of human existence is determined by certain ecological variables. With “quality of life” or “well-being” as the dependent variable, the independent variables were: distance from urban areas (city and poblacion or town center), geographical location (coastal vs. inland), land distribution, introduction of technology (development program), and “quality of life” in the barrio. Two levels of analyses were undertaken. At the macro-level, the barrio (community) was used as a unit of analyses; at the micro-level, the household and the individual were used. The barrio sample included 84 barrios and the data came from municipal records. The household sample had 359 households, with both household head and housewife interviewed. The data were from the baseline (1975) and terminal (1979) surveys of the Integrated Rural and Agricultural Development program of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños. ...