CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND THE REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Economic status is one another issue that tells whether a person could satisfy his needs or

not as his life goes on. In some many cases, people who are economically challenged are still

striving and finding ways to improve their economic status. One of those ways is finding a job, but

in order to gain sustainable income, a person should be given proper education. Education needs

good financial stability to address the needs of the person while studying to a certain field. With

that, economic status is really a big factor that affects a person’s life.

There are many occupations that the people are being engaged with to sustain the

economic stability and one of them is fishing. Fishing is one of the integral ways of living learned

by filipinos from previous civilizations of earliest years and handed down by generation to

generation in order to survive. Accordingly, fishing is not just a way for living but also a culture

that once ignited to sustain the life of many people. Thus, through this, it has been inferred that

fishing has become part of the global economic system in accordance to the realizations of

multitude of building industries that produce products from fish. That certain occupation can show

what economic status a person has. In fact, the study of Fariba (2013) stated that there are levels

of economic status that the fishermen really belong. They are determined depending on their

fishing styles, and types of fishing they are using. With this, fishermen can be identified to have a

good or poor economic status.

The municipality of Socorro is situated in a known island named as Bucas Grande Island.

It has fourteen barangays that composed on it. Their basic ways of living are farming, mat webbing

and fishing. Many residents from fourteen barangays are fishermen because the whole island is
surrounded by the ocean. There are some of the fishermen who are progressive in their lives having

big boats, well-structured houses, plenty of properties, and are able to send their children in

college. Unfortunately, there are other fishermen who still remained undeveloped and continue

struggling the hard life that they have.

The problem on the aforementioned has ignited the interest of the researchers to study the

rest of the gaps between the levels of economic status among the fishermen and has added their

curiosity about the reasons and other possible causes why they have come in different economic

status where in fact, they have the same occupation.

Review of Related Literature

To improve the life of the person, one should improve his economic status. The study of

Claxton (2009) argued that economic status could only be held positive if the person is good at

earning money. In fact, according to the study of Bhatti (2013), in the countries of Korea,

Singapore, and Japan, economic status has labeled satisfactory because the people who live there

are innovative, and most of the residents are business minded with the help of the government that

seeks job to those unemployed. From it, those countries are called progressive.

As coined in the study of Walker (2014), the state of life depends on a particular economic

status of a person. As the economic status alters, the way of living also changes. By that, a person’s

life is a state of unstable process depending on how it has been managed by a person. When it is

handled well, then life could also be good; but when it is handled improperly, life is also messy.

The thought reflects about the cause and effect situation.

Economic status is quite hard to sustain especially to the name of the fishermen. The money

they earned is based on the fish they caught and what type of fishing strategies they apply during
the fishing process. This is true considering the study of Ghani et, al (2009) that a certain type of

fishing is one factor that shows the angler’s income.

On the other hand, among the seven continents of the earth, Asia is the world’s largest

continent with 4.2 billion people or constituting 60 % of the world's population. Within Asia, India

is of the most populous country in the world with 1.21 billion people or 17.5 % of the world's

population (FAO, 2010). In India 65% of the people are still dependent on agriculture as their

livelihood and employment source which includes fisheries as one of its components. Fisheries

also serves as the valuable and cheap source of protein of the country. According to 2001 census,

India’s total population is 1,027,015,247 of which 595,9144 people are fishermen. In 2002, there

were 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers all over the world. Of this

total, 74 percent are engaged in capture fisheries and 26 percent in aquaculture. The world total

fishery production of 133 million tones equated to an average productivity of 3.5 tonnes per person.

By 2006, the number of world fishers increased to 43.5 million and the total fishery production

was 143.6 million tonnes with an average productivity of 3.3 tonnes per person (FAO, 2011).

The small scale fisheries sector are mostly the livelihood occupation of the group of

population within the extreme povertythatleads to a serious social, economic and political issue.

Due to lack of knowledge in the socio-economic conditions of fishers and fishing communities, it

leads to poor planning and implementation of various fisheries management programs (Devi et al,

2012 and Devi et al, 2014). In order to achieve the relevant and cost effective solutions to all the

complex problems of the fishers of capture and culture sector a multidisciplinary approach is

highly required which will help in the implementation of new policies and strategies considering

the opportunities and constraints prevailing on fishers and other stakeholders in this sector. While

formulating these policies and strategies the varying economic, social, cultural, resource,
institutional and political conditions will need to be assessed under the umbrella. The active

participation of the social scientists will serve as the most important role in providing the much

needed inputs in terms of socio-economic research is highly imperative.

However, education is one of the important things that must be given focus especially

nowadays. Thus, even in the life of the fishers, education is also a factor that is affected by their

socio- economic status, economic status, and economic stability. In fact, in a study on use of

indigenous technical knowledge by coastal fisherfolk of Mumbai reported that 46 percent of the

fishermen had primary level of education, followed by 20 percent knew to read and write, 18

percent of the fishermen had high school education and 16 percent of them were illiterates

(Nirmale et al. 2007). Shankar (2010) had found out that 46.66 percent of the fisherfolk of India

had primary level of education followed by middle level of school education (26%), illiterates

(13.33%), higher secondary (2.6 %) and collegiate (2%) level of education.

Vichare (2010) in her study on effect of migration on livelihood of coastal fishers in

Maharashtra reported that majority of the respondents from native population (nearly 40-50%)

acquired secondary education while that from the migrant population (nearly 40%) acquired

primary education. Deviet al (2012) had found out that (34%) of the fishers pursue middle school

and (34%) pursue high school. With this, it has been inferred that economic status is an important

factor that affects education.

Synthesis of the Review

Economic status has put impact to one’s life that is why even religion, house and habitation

are given importance and emphasis. Mishra (2001) in his study on economic feasibility of fish

culture in the district Faizabad (U.P), found out that 100 percent of the fishermen of this district
are Australian., Moreover they also had found out that fishermen of Faizabad district of U.P

belongs to Pasi, Kumhar and Rajput caste. Rahman et al. (2002) in her study on the socioeconomic

features of a traditional fishing community beside the old Brahmaputra river, Myemensingh,

Bangladesh had found out that all of the 31 fishermen interviewed in the Bhatipara village of

Bangladesh belonged to the Barman sect of the community. From then, the Bhatipara fishing

village has kept its absolute religious and ethnic purity intact. Vichare (2010) had found out that

majority of the people from the native male fish workers were found to live in owned houses and

remaining were live in rented houses. Also, majority of the respondent from the native male fish

workers in both the village were found to have small house area whereas most of the migrant fish

workers were found to have very small house area.

The schematic diagram of this study will illustration on how variables are interconnected

to each other and how one affects the other. From it, it is dearly pointed that this study will give

the thorough answers to the questions indicated to this study.

 Conceptual Framework

This study wants to show that there are still possibilities that economic status is one factor

that affects the economic stability of the person. With that, there are things that have to be given

attention in order to give some important actions like seminars or workshops.

This study focuses on how economic status serves as a factor that gives great impact to the

life of the fishermen. With that, types of fishing and types of fish caught are given emphasis as

profile of the respondents that serve as major factors that puts impact to the life of the fishermen.

This study also tackles the economic stability among the fishermen in which it includes income

for fishing and expenses. However, the other variables like education, health, foods, are indicated

in the study as terms that shows the economic status of the fishermen according to their expenses

allocated through these variables.

With the given problems, limitations of the study, and specified participants, this study is

expected to give beneficial information and findings that will cater the needs of the fishermen

through the interventions which will be developed based on the results of this study.
Profile of Fishermen
Level of Financial Economic Status
a. types of fishing
Stability a. Education
b. types of fish caught
c. number of kilos a. income of fishing b. Health
caught per fishing b. expenses c. Foods
duration

Interventions maybe
Proposed

Figure 1. Schematic Diagram of the Study

 Statement of the Problem

This study will determine the impact of economic status to the life of fishermen of

Socorro. Specifically, this study will answer the following questions:

1. What is the profile of the fishermen in terms of:

1.1 types of fishing

1.2 types of fish caught

1.3 number of kilos of fish caught per fishing duration

2. What is the level of financial stability among fishermen as to:

2.1 income of fishing

2.2 expenses

3. What is the economic status of the family in terms of expenses?

3.1 education

3.2 health

3.3 foods

4. Based on the findings, what interventions maybe proposed?

 Significance of the study

The result of the study will generate more insights that are useful to the following:

Fishermen. The result of this study will give hem strategies on how to improve their fishing skills.

This will help them choose what to do in their work as fishermen. With this, they will be given

information on how to gain income through engaging business using fish as main source or

ingredient of their products.

Teachers. This study will become useful as a guide of their lessons in a particular field especially

those who teach acquacultural bases where fishing is a topic. In addition, to those DepEd

personalities, as part of the requirements of National Competency – Based Teacher Standards, they

are going to engage themselves to community linkages or immersion where they are going to teach

the fishermen the knowledge for fishing. This includes the strategies of fishing and other business

opportunities for the fishermen where fish is the major source of their products.

Future Researchers. This study will serve as basis of their research related to this study. Through

this, they can put additional insights and information to improve the fishing abilities or skills of

the fishermen in order to enhance their economic status.

 Scope and Limitation of the Study

The scope of the study will be limited to the following:

This study will focus on the impact of economic status to the life of the fishermen. . This

research will also be realized to help the fishermen, teachers, and future researchers that there are

ways on how to improve the economic status of the fishermen in order to enhance their life.

The participants of this study will be the fishermen who reside within the municipality of

Socorro. They will be randomly selected to answer the instrument of this study or the

questionnaire.

The study will be conducted during the first semester of S.Y. 2018 – 2019

The results of this study will be limited only to the specified concerns of this research.
 CHAPTER II
METHOD

This chapter will present the research design, participants, instrument, data gathering

procedure and data analysis of the study.

Research design

This study will use a quantitative research approach. Thus, a descriptive survey method

will be considered to use in order to determine the impact of economic status to the life of the

fishermen in the municipality of Socorro.

Participants

The participants of the study will be the fishermen in the municipality of Socorro. These

participants will be randomly selected to answer the research questionnaire.

Instrument

This study will use a researcher made questionnaire, validated by the experts, to gather the

data in order to answer the problems that are stated in the study. It will be administered to the

randomly selected participants who reside in the municipality of Socorro. It will be having item

indicators with corresponding parameters to make the questionnaire more understood by the

respondents. The data will be tabulated and interpreted by the researcher after the participants

answer the research questionnaire.

 Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers will send a formal letter to the participants as a way of asking their

permission to conduct the respective survey of the study. After which, the researchers will

personally administer the questionnaire which will be validated by the experts, but before that,

they will give a brief explanation why they want to study the topic and will inform the participants

about the benefits of the study. After the answering of questionnaire made by the participants, the

researchers will collect the questionnaire for tabulation and analysis based on the problems posted

in chapter 1. Tallying of data, analysis and interpretation will follow the administration and

collection of data.

Data Analysis

The statistical tools that will be used in the study to employ the treatment of data

are the following:

Frequency Distribution is for the profile of the respondents.

Mean (M) is for the level of financial stability of the fishermen.

Table 1 Descriptive scale

Scale Parameter Verbal Interpretation

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4 3.25 – 4.00 Strongly Agree

3 2.50 – 3.24 Agree
2 1.75 – 2.49 Disagree
1 1.00 – 1.74 Strongly Disagree
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