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

• Senior citizens made up 5.7 percent of the municipality’s household population. In 2015, the household population of the municipality of Buguias reached 43.5 thousand. Senior citizens made up the 5.7 percent to household population as shown in Table 1. It is 25.5 percent (503) higher compared to the 2010 population of elders.
• Among the barangays, the highest number of elders was in Loo with 12.3 percent of the senior in the municipality, followed by Bangao with 9.9 percent, and Buyacaoan with 8.9 percent.
• In terms of proportion of senior citizens to the household population, Amlimay posted the highest at 7.9 percent, followed by Buyacaoan at 6.6 percent. Both proportions were higher than the municipal level of 5.7 percent. Calamagan had the least proportion of senior citizens to its household population with 3.3 percent.

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

Female senior citizens outnumber males

• Of the total senior citizens in the Buguias, 51.8 percent were females (1284) while 48.2 percent were males (1,193).
• Female senior citizens outnumbered males in 70-74, 75-79 age groups and with the biggest gap in the age group 80 years and over.
• The number of senior citizens decreases as age increases. About 37.3 percent (923) of the population of senior citizens were 60 to 64 years old, 22.0 percent (546) were 65 to 69 years old, 18.1 percent (449) were 70 to 74 years old, 13.0 percent (322) were 75-79 and 9.6 percent (237) were 80 and above.

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

Majority of senior citizens are married

• Of the total household population aged 60 years and over in the municipality, 64.9 percent (1,067) were married and 29.0 percent (718) were widowed.
• A relatively small proportion was reported divorced or separated with 4.9 percent (122).
• There were only 9 senior citizens with status of common-law or live-in, representing 0.4 percent of the total number of senior citizens in Buguias.

Few of the seniors are academic degree holder

• Only 143 senior citizens in the municipality of Buguias were academic degree holder.

• Most of the senior citizens finished primary undergraduate (955 or 38.6%) followed by elementary graduate with 416 (16.8%). There were 444 senior citizens (17.9%) who did not finish any level of education and most of them is female (332).
• Most of the female senior citizen had the highest number of no grade completed with 74.8 percent while male was only at 25.2 percent. However, it also indicates that female elders exceeded the number of males in academic degree holder.

• Simple literacy rate of elders in the municipality of Buguias when compared to household population was 83.7 percent (2,073) as shown in Figure 4. The remaining 16.3 percent (404) 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

• Mostly (48.9% or 758) of the senior citizens in Buguias were skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers. This was followed by seniors engaged in elementary occupations with 17.2 percent (426) and 6.9 percent were managers in their own business/farm.
• There 927 (37.4%) 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.
• Abatan posted the highest number of professionals while Loo had the highest number of seniors engage in skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers, elementary occupations and professionals.

There are still 139 seniors that is unregistered in Buguias

• The percentage of senior citizens whose birth was registered is 90.3 (2,236) while 5.6 percent (139) were unregistered and 4.1 percent (102) was unknown.