Senior citizens reach more than a thousand in the Municipality of Bakun

• Senior citizens defined as individuals belonging to the age group 60 years and over. In 2015, the household population of the municipality of Bakun reached 19.6 thousand. About 7.1 percent of the household population in Bakun was senior citizens.
• Among the barangays, Gambang recorded the highest number of elders with 23.29 percent, followed by both Ampusongan and Dalipey with 16.6 percent, and Poblacion (Central) with 12.6 percent. On the other hand, Bagu had the least of elders with 8.3 percent.
• As to the proportion of senior citizens to the household population, Bagu displayed the highest at 11.0 percent, followed by Sinacbat and Dalipey at 8.2 and 7.5 percent respectively. Proportion in Bagu was higher than the regional level of 7.1 percent.
• Barangay Gambang had the least proportion of senior citizens to its household population with 6.0 percent.

Table 1. Household Population and Number of Senior Citizens by Barangay: Bakun, 2015

Female senior citizens outnumber males

• Of the total senior citizens in the municipality, 50.83 percent (550) were males while the remaining 49.17 percent (532) were females.
• The number of male elders was higher than females except for the age group of 75 to 79 and 80 years and above.
• About 31.15 percent (337) of the elders belongs to age group 60-64 years old, 25.60 percent (277) belongs to 65-69 years old, 18.58 percent (201) were 70-74 years old, and 11.37 percent (123) were 80 years old and above.

Figure 1. Age-Sex Household Population of Senior Citizen: Bakun, 2015

Majority of senior citizens are married

• As shown in Figure 2, majority of the total population of senior citizens were married with 64.7 percent comprising more than half of the household population.
• There were only 3 senior citizens with status of common-law or live-in, representing 0.3 percent of the total number of senior citizens in Bakun.

Few of the seniors are academic degree holder

• Only 40 senior citizens in the municipality of Bakun were academic degree holder

• Majority of the senior citizens were primary undergraduate with 165 female and 221 male representing 35.7 percent of the total population.
• Male elders exceeded the number of female graduates in elementary and high school but not in academic degree holder. There were 26 females (65%) with academic degree holder and only 14 males (35%).
• A total of 223 female senior citizens were recorded to have no grade completed, almost thrice the number of male senior citizen with the same level.

• A total of 471 male and 323 female senior citizens were recorded literate comprising 73.4 percent of the total senior citizen population and the remaining 26.6 percent were illiterate senior citizens. The remaining 310 (19.2%) seniors cannot able to read and write a simple message. Moreover, literacy rate for males were higher than the females.

Mostly of the senior are skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers

• Majority of the senior citizens in Bakun were skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers with a total of 412 (38.8 percent). This was followed by senior citizens engaged in elementary occupations and manager with total of 169 (15.62%).
• There are 647 (59.8%) seniors who engaged in non-gainful activity (dependent/pensioner/ person with disability).
• In every barangay, almost all elders were skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers.
• Gambang posted the highest number of skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers and elementary occupations.

There are still 31 seniors that is unregistered in Bakun

• The percentage of senior citizens whose birth was registered is 1,036 (95.75%) while 31 (28.7%) were unregistered and 15 (1.39%) was unknown.