HKU POP SITE releases the latest findings on people's 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 latest findings on people's satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions. 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 April 8, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of the top 10 political figures in Mainland China and Taiwan, as well as people's opinions towards the independence of Taiwan and cross-strait reunification will be released.

Between March 17 and 19, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,068 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that 72% of the respondents were most concerned with economic problems these days, 19% were most concerned with social problems, while 4% attached their greatest concern to political problems. When compared with the findings obtained in mid-December last year, the figure for social problems has significantly increased by 5 percentage points.

With respect to people's satisfaction with the current political condition, the latest findings indicated that 28% of the respondents were satisfied, 34% were dissatisfied, 21% said "half-half", while 17% did not give a definite answer. The satisfaction figure has increased by 4 percentage points from that of mid-December last year, whereas the dissatisfaction figure has dropped by 3 percentage points.

Of the three main areas of concern, people continued to feel most dissatisfied with the economic condition. The latest results showed that 84% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 5% were satisfied, 9% said "half-half", while 2% did not give a definite answer. When compared to the results of mid-December last year, the dissatisfaction figure has significantly increased by 4 percentage points to set its record high.

With regard to the social condition, 48% of the respondents were dissatisfied, 27% were satisfied, 23% said "half-half", while 3% did not give a definite answer. A significant drop of 6 percentage points was recorded for the satisfaction figure, while the dissatisfaction one has increased by 5 percentage points.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following observations on the latest findings: "According to our latest quarterly survey on people's satisfaction with Hong Kong's current conditions, a staggering 85% or so of the population were unhappy with the economic condition in mid-March, while almost 50% were unhappy with the social environment. It seems that Hong Kong is losing out in both fronts. Regarding board areas of people's concern, because the survey was conducted in the early stage of the outbreak of atypical pneumonia, and during the time when Antony Leung's "car purchase incident" was brewing, economic problems remained to be people's most concerned area. It was chosen by more than 70% of the population as their area of concern. People's attention to social problems, however, was on the rise. It was 5 percentage points higher than that of the last survey. As atypical pneumonia continues to spread, people will no doubt turn their attention to social problems, and their satisfaction with the current social condition is bound to go down."

The new poll released 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 1,068 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that 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 further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.