HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and the GovernmentBack

Press Release on May 28, 2013

Special Announcement

“OCLP Deliberation Series” DDay1 to be held on June 9

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is commissioned by the Secretariat of the “Occupy Central with Love and Peace” (OCLP) to organize the “OCLP Deliberation Series”, which aims to let members of the general public and supporters of the campaign formulate proposals for the 2017 CE Election through rational discussions. There will be three Deliberation Days (DDays) in the Deliberation Series, and DDay1 is scheduled to be held on June 9 (Sunday), comprising one module for the general public and another module for campaign supporters. For the general public, POP will invite 100 Hong Kong citizens to participate in the event via random telephone calls, while for the campaign supporters, they will be invited by the OCLP Secretariat. Details of these activities have been announced in the press conference held last week.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,023 Hong Kong people between 20 and 23 May 2013 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that although the approval rate of CE CY Leung has remained stable over the past two weeks, his rating has significantly dropped by 2.3 marks and can be considered as a lagging change. CY Leung’s support rating now stands at 46.7 marks, approval rate at 30%, disapproval rate at 54%, giving a net popularity of negative 24 percentage points. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has changed significantly over the past month. Its latest satisfaction rate is 26%, dissatisfaction rate jumps 8 percentage points to 44%, pressing the net satisfaction rate down to negative 18 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that those aged between 18 and 29 are most critical of CY Leung as CE. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and net values need another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 69%.

Points to note:
[1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] The sample size of this survey is 1,023 successful interviews, not 1,023 x 69.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure and net value needs another calculation. "95% confidence level" means 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of rating not more than +/-1.6 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error of net values not more than +/-7% at 95% confidence level".
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey, and rounding procedures in collating the figures, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Latest Figures

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of CE CY Leung and the HKSAR Government. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2012 year-end.

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages^[6]
20-23/5/2013	1,023	69.5%	+/-3%

[6] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sampling error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

Recent popularity figures of CE CY Leung and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	27/2-6/3/13	21-27/3/13	2-10/4/13	17-25/4/13	2-7/5/13	20-23/5/13	Latest change
Sample base	1,023	1,003	1,007	1,023	1,017	1,023	--
Overall response rate	65.5%	67.1%	66.2%	68.6%	65.9%	69.5%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error^[7]	--
Rating of CE CY Leung	48.6	51.4^[9]	50.5	49.9	49.0	46.7+/-1.6	-2.3^[9]
Vote of confidence in CE CY Leung	33%	32%	32%	35%	29%^[9]	30+/-3%	+1%
Vote of no confidence in CE CY Leung	49%	51%	51%	49%	54%^[9]	54+/-3%	--
Net approval rate	-16%	-19%	-19%	-14%	-25%^[9]	-24+/-6%	+1%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	28%	--	29%	--	26+/-4%	-3%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	34%	--	36%	--	44+/-4%	+8%^[9]
Net satisfaction rate	--	-6%	--	-7%	--	-18+/-7%	-11%^[9]
Mean value^[8]	--	2.9+/-0.1 (Base=655)	--	2.8+/-0.1 (Base=595)	--	2.7+/-0.1 (Base=547)	-0.1

[7] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means 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. Media can state “sampling error of rating not more than +/-1.6, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error of net values not more than +/-7% at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[8] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. Starting from March 2011, this question only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sample size for this series is 553.
[9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

The latest survey showed that, CE Leung Chun-ying scored 46.7 marks, and 30% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 24 percentage points. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 26% were satisfied, whereas 44% were dissatisfied, thus net satisfaction stands at negative 18 percentage points. The mean score is 2.7, meaning close to “half-half”.

Indepth Analysis

In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. Herewith further analysis of the support rate of Leung Chun-ying as Chief Executive by respondents' age:

Date of survey: 20-23/5/2013		18-29	30-49	50 or above	Overall sample
Support / Oppose Leung Chun-ying as CE^[10]	Support	20+/-6% (38)	29+/-5% (113)	35+/-5% (152)	30+/-3% (303)
	Oppose	69+/-7% (132)	55+/-5% (211)	46+/-5% (201)	54+/-3% (544)
	Don’t know / Hard to say	11+/-4% (20)	16+/-4% (62)	19+/-4% (81)	16+/-2% (163)
	Total	100% (190)	100% (386)	100% (435)	100% (1,011)

[10] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

Opinion Daily

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey of some items was conducted from 17 to 25 April, 2013, while this survey was conducted from 20 to 23 May, 2013. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

21/5/13	Executive Council member Barry Cheung Chun-yuen announces he is taking leave from all public offices.
18/5/13	Timothy Tong Hin-ming attends the hearing of Legislative Council.
13/5/13	Cheung Kong Holdings revokes the sales of Apex Horizon Hotel rooms and will reimburse the deposits.
6/5/13	Strikers accept a 9.8 percent pay rise from contractors.
2/5/13	An independent committee will examine the former head of the ICAC Timothy Tong.
30/4/13	Inquiry report of Lamma ferry tragedy puts blame on Marine Department.
27/4/13	Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, Zhang Dejiang meets with the political parties in Hong Kong for the first time.
24/4/13	Government's request of a HK$100 million donation to the Sichuan government to aid quake victims is on hold.
20/4/13	A magnitude-7 shallow earthquake hits Lushan county of Ya' an city in Sichuan province.
18/4/13	Global Stevedoring Service Co. decides to close down.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, “Our latest survey shows that although the approval rate of CE CY Leung has remained stable over the past two weeks, his rating has significantly dropped by 2.3 marks and can be considered as a lagging change. CY Leung’s support rating now stands at 46.7 marks, approval rate at 30%, disapproval rate at 54%, giving a net popularity of negative 24 percentage points. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has changed significantly over the past month. Its latest satisfaction rate is 26%, dissatisfaction rate jumps 8 percentage points to 44%, pressing the net satisfaction rate down to negative 18 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that those aged between 18 and 29 are most critical of CY Leung as CE. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our ‘Opinion Daily’.”

Future Releases (Tentative)

May 30, 2013 (Thursday) 1pm to 2 pm: Annual June Fourth survey
June 4, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: People's feelings towards different governments and peoples