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

• Senior citizens defined as individuals belonging to the age group 60 years and over. In 2015, the household population of the municipality of Mankayan reached 35.9 thousand. Senior citizens made up the 6.4 percent (2,299) as shown in Table 1. It is 29.0 percent (517) higher compared to the 2010 population of elders.
• Among the Municipality/Barangay, the highest number of elders was in Balili with 15.4 percent, followed by Tabio with 12.3 percent, and Paco with 11.1 percent. Meanwhile, Bedbed had the least of elders with 4.5 percent.
• In terms of proportion of senior citizens to the household population, Bedbed posted the highest at 7.6 percent, followed by Colalo at 8.4 percent.
• Paco had the least proportion of senior citizens to the household population with 4.4 percent.

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

Male senior citizens outnumber females

• Of the total senior citizens in Mankayan, 50.3 percent were male while the rest were female.
• Male senior citizens outnumbered females except for the age group 70 to 74, 75 to 79 years old and 80 years old and over.
• The number of senior citizens decreases as age increases. About 38.8 percent (888) of the elders belongs to age group 60-64 years old, 22.3 percent (510) belongs to 65-69 years old, 14.9 percent (341) were 70-74 years old, 12.7 percent (291) were 75-79 and 11.7 percent (269) were 80 years old and above.

Majority of senior citizens are married

• Of the total household population aged 60 years and over in the municipality, 64.5 percent (1483) were married and 28.0 percent (644) were widowed.
• A relatively small proportion was reported divorced or separated with 1.2 percent (28).
• There were 18 senior citizens with status of common-law or live-in, representing 0.8 percent of the total number of senior citizens in Mankayan.

Few of the seniors are academic degree holder

• Only 156 senior citizens in the municipality of Mankayan were academic degree holder.

• Mostly (18.05 or 31.1%) of the senior citizens finished primary undergraduate followed by elementary graduate with 415 (18.1%). There were 370 senior citizens (16.09%) who did not finish any level of education and most of them is female (254).
• Male elders exceeded the number of female graduates in elementary and high school but not in academic degree holder. There were 116 females (74.4%) academic degree holder and only 40 males (25.6%).

Majority of the elders can read and write simple message

• Simple literacy rate of elders in the municipality of Mankayan was 84.9 percent (1,952). The remaining 15.1 percent (347) cannot able to read and write a simple message. Moreover, literacy rate for males were higher than the females as shown in Figure 4.

Mostly of the senior are skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers

• Mankayan’s senior citizens occupation maximized by 43.8% (529) Skilled Agricultural Forestry and Fishery Workers, 27.1% (333) Elementary Occupations and 10.8% (133) Managers. There are 18.3% (234) senior citizens reported having other works than the three-majority works.
• There were 46.5 percent (1,070) seniors engaged in non-gainful activity (dependent/pensioner/ person with disability).
• Balili had the highest number of skilled agricultural forestry and fishery workers and also senior engaged in elementary occupations. Poblacion posted the highest number of managers.

There are still 66 unregistered birth of seniors in Mankayan

• The percentage of senior citizens whose birth was registered is 93.9 percent (1,536) and 2.9 percent (66) were unregistered while 3.2 percent (74) are unknown.