HKU POP releases second part of Macau annual survey 2014Back

To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, The Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 62 regular rating surveys of CE CY Leung, as well as the 181 regular rating surveys of former CE Donald Tsang and 239 regular rating surveys of former CE CH Tung, along with related demographics of respondents. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

Hong Kong and Macau differ a lot, the figures of their public sentiments cannot be directly compared. However, within the survey series conducted by POP in Macau, they themselves can be compared. Between 1 and 3 December 2014, POP interviewed 502 Macau people by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers, and found that using a one-in-three choices method, livelihood issues continue to be Macau people’s most concerned issues followed by economic and then political issues, a pattern which has existed for many years. Among the ratings of 4 core social indicators, that of “prosperity” drops significantly, that of “freedom” drops to record low since 2001, that of “stability” remains the same, while that of “democracy” slightly goes up but remains at the bottom. As for Macau people’s appraisal of news media in general, the latest credibility rating drops to record low since 2003 to 5.20 marks. Compared to one year ago, people's net trusts in the Macau SAR and Central Governments have both dropped, to positive 32 and 33 percentage points respectively. The latter is a record low since the handover in 1999. As for the confidence indicators, people’s confidence in the future of Macau, the future of China, and “one country, two systems” have all remained positive, but their net values continue to drop, to positive 53, 66 and 46 percentage points respectively. Among them, net trusts towards Macau’s future and “one country, two systems” have again dropped to all-time lows since the handover in 1999. In terms of ethnic identity, people’s identification ratings of “Macau citizen” and “Chinese citizen” have remained stable compared to one year ago, at 8.0 and 7.7 marks. All in all, our Macau Annual Survey has shown that Macau people are getting less positive than previous years regarding the development of Macau in the year past. 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 66%.

Since 1992, POP has been conducting onsite studies in Macau in order to study the development of its public sentiment. Among them, most are related to election studies and opinion testing. Up to now, these research projects include Macau Legislative Assembly Exit Polls (1992, 1996, 2001, 2005 and 2009), Macau handover and year-end review surveys (since 1999), and other feature studies

After the sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macau returned to China, the development of public sentiment in the two cities has become more inter-related. One can expect that Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau, Zhuhai and the whole Pearl River Delta will soon merge to become one entity both economically and culturally. Therefore, in the long run, establishing a common social indicator in this region is a “multiple-win situation” for all. POP’s research in Macau in the last 22 years is aimed at gradually building up a regional system on scientific public opinion polling, and to provide useful data for comparative studies in future.

POP today releases via the “POP SITE” the second part of the Macau annual survey 2014. The first part of survey results were released on December 19, 2014. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to figures obtained from the Statistics and Census Service of Macau government regarding the gender-age distribution of the Macau population in 2013 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

[6] 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.

I. Appraisal of society’s conditions

Recent figures of Macau people’s appraisal of society’s conditions are summarized as follows:

[7] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals.
[8] 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 various ratings not more than +/-0.21 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[9] The wordings used before the 2012 survey were “social problems” and “social condition”. We take them to mean the same as “livelihood problems” and “livelihood condition” in the survey context.
[10] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, 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.

Latest survey showed that 69% of the respondents were most concerned with livelihood problems, 24% with economic problems, while 4% attached their greatest concern to political problems. Regarding the core social indicators, latest results showed that, on a scale of 0-10, Macau's degree of “prosperity” scored the highest rating with 7.22 marks, followed by “stability” with 7.20 marks, and then “freedom” and “democracy”, with 6.71 and 5.51 marks respectively. As for people’s appraisal of Macau’s news media, on a scale of 0-10, the latest credibility rating of the Macau’s news media in general was 5.20 marks.

II. Trust and confidence indicators

Recent popularity figures of Macau SAR and Beijing Central and people’s confidence in the future as well as “one country, two systems” are summarized below:

[11] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals. 
[12] 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 percentages not more than +/-4% and of net values not more than +/-8% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[13] 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.
[14] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, 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.

Latest survey revealed that 53% of the respondents trusted the Macau SAR Government, 52% trusted the Beijing Central Government. The net trust values were positive 32 and positive 33 percentage points, while the mean scores of these trust indicators were 3.4 and 3.5 respectively, meaning between “quite trust” and “half-half” in general. On the other hand, 74% of the respondents had confidence in Macau’s future and 80% had confidence in China’s future, while 70% of the respondents were confident in “one country, two systems”. The three net confidence values were positive 53, positive 66 and positive 46 percentage points.

III. Ethnic identity

[15] 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 strength ratings not more than +/-0.2 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[16] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, 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 above figures were collected from independent rating questions, but not involving the dichotomy issue of “Macau citizens” and “Chinese citizens”. Latest findings showed that the identity ratings for “Macau citizens” and “citizens of PRC” were 8.0 and 7.7 marks respectively.

• January 12, 2015 (Monday) 1pm to 2pm: People’s expectation of CE’s Policy Address

• January 13, 2015 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials

• January 15, 2015 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address Instant Poll