Household Profile
A typical Filipino family consisted of five family members. The household head was usually the father in his late 40s. The other family members were mostly young dependents (below 14 years old), while some were of working age or possibly an extended family member.
Less than half of the household members aged 21 and over had a high school diploma. Notwithstanding this, school attendance rates were relatively higher at 39.3 percent in 2018 than 37.7 percent in 2014.
Nearly half of the household members (48.7%) had health insurance, an increase by 7.6 percent from 2014. Almost all of them were covered by PhilHealth, with coverage rate (48.5%) higher than 40.3 percent in 2014.
Household Income
The average monthly income of a household of five was around ₱15,000 in 2017.
Majority of Filipino households (73.7%) sourced their income from employment or a salaried job, in either the public or private sector. Employment income accounted for 89.6 percent of the total income of households that relied on salaries/wages. For a family of five, the average income was ₱10,366.
Only a few Filipino households (5.1%) were engaged in entrepreneurial activities and 91.2 percent of which were sole proprietorship.
Nearly half of the households (47.6%) derived their income from other sources, commonly remittances from abroad (12.5%).
Household Spending
For a household of five, the average monthly expenditure was about ₱22,000.
Food consumption (72.1%) accounted for the largest share of total household expenditure.
Expenditures on housing and utilities (23.9%), transportation (10.5%) and health (4.8%) were largest among non-food items.
Households’ spending on education (7.4%) and alcoholic beverages and tobacco (5.8%) closely follow each other.
Asset Accumulation of Households
Out of the 71.6 percent of households that owned or co-owned a residential property, 45.4 percent owned both house and lot while 26.2 percent owned only a housing unit.
Close to ten percent (8.8%) of households possessed other real property (apart from their residence), lower than 13 percent in 2014. The most common types of these properties were land parcel, farm and house and lot.
Motorcycles continued to be the most popular transportation vehicle owned by Filipino households at 68.6 percent in 2018 from 60.3 percent in 2014.
Almost every Filipino home owned a mobile phone and television set (with an ownership rate of 85% each).
About one in four Filipino households (22.6%) had access to financial products and services. The top financial assets owned by households were insurance/pension and deposit accounts.
Around 16.3 percent of households owned an insurance or pension plan or were receiving insurance/pension benefits.
About 9.7 percent of households owned one or more deposit accounts, typically interest-bearing savings accounts. The leading account providers were universal and commercial banks as well as non-stock savings and loan associations.
More households kept their cash at home for emergency (28.2%) than in deposit accounts (9.7%).
Less than one percent of households availed of financial investment and electronic money (e-money) accounts, which were most often linked with their deposit accounts.
Only a few households had account receivables (6.6%) in the form of non-property loans owed to them by other people or businesses.
Outstanding Liabilities of Households
Nearly two in every five households (40.4%) had some form of debt, such as outstanding loans (28.2%), household bills (17.1%) and unpaid credit card bills (1.6%).
The top sources of households’ loans were Pag-IBIG Fund and National Housing Authority for housing loans, in-house financing for vehicle loans, and financing companies/institutions for business and other consumer loans.
When choosing a loan provider, the top consideration of households was the level of interest rates, i.e., the lower the better. Bulk of reported interest rates by borrowing households were broadly low at 1‒4 percent.
Households were able to manage their loans well as most were paid on time (64.6% of vehicle loans, 43.3% of housing loans, 86.3% of business loans, 77% of other loans, 69.6% of credit card debts).
Access to Digital Financial Services of Households
One in every four (23.4%) households with outstanding loan used digital financial services (DFS) in a credit-related process or transaction.
About one in every four (27.3%) households with savings/investment used digital platform in accessing or transacting with their account.
Online banking appeared to be the most preferred mode of digital payment among households.
The most common payment-related transactions done via digital channel were investments in financial asset (27.1%), payments of credit card bills (16.3%) and sending of remittances (6.7%).
About the Survey
The Consumer Finance Survey (CFS) is a nationwide triennial survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on the financial condition of Filipino households, considering their assets, liabilities, income, and expenditure.1 Patterned after the United States’ Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) of the Federal Reserve Board, the CFS was developed to address the data gaps on household wealth and indebtedness in the Philippines and complement the existing household surveys of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), namely the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) and the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS). Data for the 2018 CFS were gathered from 14,860 respondent households (82.6% of the targeted 18,000 sample households) nationwide on 11 October 2018 to 2 June 2019. Survey results were aggregated at the national level and disaggregated at the following levels: National Capital Region (NCR), urban Areas Outside the NCR (AONCR), and rural AONCR. Employment, income, and expenditure data were for the calendar year 2017, while all other information, such as the household profile, assets and liabilities was as of date of interview.
Source: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)