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

• Senior citizens defined as individuals belonging to the age group 60 years and over. In 2015, the household population of the municipality of Itogon reached 59.6 thousand. Senior citizens made up the 6.7 percent (3,975) as shown in Table 1. It is 25.3 percent (802) higher compared to the 2010 population of elders.
• Among the barangays, the highest number of elders was in Ucab with 17.3 percent, followed by Tinongdan with 15.2 percent, and Gumatdang with 13.4 percent. Meanwhile, Ampucao had the least of elders with 7.8 percent.
• In terms of proportion of senior citizens to the household population, Gumatdang posted the highest at 24.6 percent, followed by Tinongdan at 16.9 percent. Both proportions were higher than the municipality level of 6.7percent.
• Ampucao had the least proportion of senior citizens to the household population with 2.8 percent.

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

Female senior citizens outnumber males

• Of the total senior citizens in Itogon, 53.84 percent were females while the rest were males.
• Female senior citizens outnumbered males in all age groups except in the age group 60-64 and with the biggest gap in the age group 80 and above.
• The number of senior citizens decreases as age increases. About 40.4 percent (1,606) of the population of senior citizens were 60 to 64 years old, 24.7 percent (982) were 65 to 69 years old and 14.1 percent (559) were 70 to 74 years old.

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, 60.28 percent (2,396) were married and 30.3 percent (1,205) were widowed.
• A relatively small proportion was reported single with only 7.12 percent (283).
• There were only 29 senior citizens with status common-law/live-in, representing 0.7 percent of the total number of senior citizens in Itogon.

Few of the seniors are academic degree holder

• Only 277 senior citizens in the municipality of Itogon were academic degree holder.

• Mostly 1,639 or 41.2% of the senior citizens finished primary undergraduate followed by elementary graduate with 954 (24.0%). There were 335 senior citizens (20.7%) who did not finish any level of education and most of them is female (381 or 9.6%).
• Male elders exceeded the number of female graduates in high school but not in academic degree holder. There were 179 females with academic degree holder and only 98 males.

• Simple literacy rate of elders in the municipality of Atok when compared to household population was 80.8 percent (1,306) as shown in Figure 4. The remaining 19.2 percent (310) 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 10.0 percent of the senior citizens in Itogon were plant and machine operators. This was followed by skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers with 9.8 percent and 6.1 percent were engage in elementary occupations.
• There are 2,508 (63.1%) seniors who engaged in non-gainful activity (dependent/pensioner/ person with disability).
• Dalupirip and Tinongdan posted the highest number of skilled agricultural while Virac and Ampucao had the highest number of seniors engaged in plant and machine operators and assemblers.

There are still 231 seniors that is unregistered in Itogon

• The percentage of senior citizens whose birth was registered is 90.6 (3602) while 5.8 percent (231) were unregistered and 142 (3.6%) was unknown.