HKU POP SITE releases the result of the 2002 year-ender survey, people's most concerned problems, their satisfaction with the policy direction of CE Tung Chee-hwa, and their satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditionsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the result of the 2002 year-ender survey, people's most concerned problems, their satisfaction with the policy direction of CE Tung Chee-hwa, and their satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions. Since today's release has already incorporated the last data point of these survey items in 2002, the media is welcome to use our tables (especially the half-yearly averages) and charts as year-end wrap-ups of these items since the 1997 handover.

POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly. According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be January 7, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest findings on people's opinions towards the independence of Taiwan and cross-strait reunification, as well as their ethnic identity will be released. Besides, to be in tune with the future development of this site, a re-designed "HKU POP SITE" will be officially launched on January 1, 2003, with many new items. Feedbacks and suggestions are most welcome.

According to the latest (December 13-18) figures released today, for the year past, 39% of the respondents said they were happy, 27% were not, 33% said "half-half". As for people's satisfaction with Hong Kong's development in the year past, 62% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 14% were satisfied, 19% said "half-half", while 5% did not give a definite answer. The dissatisfaction figure has increased by 5 percentage points when compared with that of a similar survey conducted one year ago.

As regards the prospect for the coming year, 37% of the respondents believed that their personal development would become better, 21% thought they would become worse off, 26% said "the same", 15% did not give a definite answer. Meanwhile, 42% of the respondents expected Hong Kong's development in general to become "better" next year, 28% held the opposite view, 18% said "the same", while 12% did not give a definite answer. Compared with the results obtained last year, the proportions of respondents who held a positive view in their personal development and Hong Kong's future in the coming year have increased by 9 and 14 percentage points respectively, both increases were statistically significant.

On the other hand, given the choice of a "prosperous", "free" or "fair" society, 47% of the respondents would wish Hong Kong to become "a prosperous society", while 22% and 20% opted for a "free" and "fair" society respectively. The latter two figures have both increased by 4 percentage points compared to those of last year.

A record high of 78% of the respondents thought that "economy" was the most important problem that the Hong Kong government should tackle next year, representing a significant increase of 8 percentage points from that of last year, and leading with a wide margin from the remaining items.

As for people's new year wishes, 43% were economic-related, 12% were related to personal career or studies, 9% opted for "world peace". Meanwhile, 7% of the respondents made wishes about personal health, while another 7% gave their wishes to people's livelihood, 10% did not make any wish.

Regarding people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, the latest figures indicated that 43% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 14% were satisfied, 28% said "half-half", while 15% did not give a definite answer. These figures were more or less the same as those registered in mid-November. On a macro level (please see the charts with half-yearly averages), the satisfaction figure has fluctuated downwards from 33% registered in the second half of 1997 to 14% recorded in the second half of this year, and has remained at the low end for quite a while.

As for people's most concerned problems, the latest findings obtained in mid-December showed that 74% of the respondents were most concerned with economic problems, 14% were most concerned with social problems, while 5% attached their greatest concern to political problems. Compared with the results of mid-September, the figure for social problems has dropped by 5 percentage points. On a macro level (please see the charts with half-yearly averages), the proportion of respondents who were most concerned with economic problems has been fluctuating above 60% after it peaked at 73% in the second half of 1998, way beyond the other two problems. On the other hand, the corresponding figure for social problems has remained to fluctuate at the lower end of 20% to 30%, after its significant drop in the first half of 1998. In recent years, it has dropped even further to less than 20%. Meanwhile, the proportion of respondents most concerned with political problems has remained very stable at around 5%.

With respect to people's satisfaction with the current political condition, the latest results indicated that 24% of the respondents were satisfied, 38% were not, 20% said "half-half", while 18% did not give a definite answer. Compared with the findings obtained in mid-September, the satisfaction figure has dropped by 6 percentage points, which was statistically significant, while the dissatisfaction figure has rapidly increased by 10 percentage points to its record high. On a macro level (please see the charts with half-yearly averages), the dissatisfaction figure has been fluctuating between a narrow range of 25% to 30%, until the first half of this year, when it went up from 25% to 33%.

Of the three areas of concern, people continued to feel most dissatisfied with the economic condition. The latest results showed that 80% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 6% were satisfied, 12% said "half-half", while 2% did not give a definite answer. These results were similar to those of mid-September. On a macro level (please see the charts with half-yearly averages), the dissatisfaction figure first reached a peak of 76% in the second half of 1998, followed by a gentle drop between the first half of 1990 and the first half of 2001. It then rebounded in the second half of 2001 to reach its historic high of 81% in the second half of this year.

With regard to the social condition, 42% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 33% were satisfied, 23% said "half-half", while 2% did not give a definite answer. Compared with the results of mid-September, the satisfaction figure has increased by 6 percentage points, which was statistically significant. On a macro level (please see the charts with half-yearly averages), a general upward trend was observed for the dissatisfaction figure, from 27% in the second half of 1997 to 42% in the second half of this year.

The new survey reported in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. That means if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not comment on the findings at this stage. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.