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Press Release on February 21, 2017

| Detailed Findings (Social Indicators) |

| Detailed Findings (Freedom Indicators) |

| Detailed Findings (Rule of law indicators) |

Special Announcements

1. As in previous years, Public Opinion Programme (POP) at The University of Hong Kong will conduct an instant survey after the Financial Secretary Paul Chan gives his Budget Talk tomorrow (February 22, 2017, Wednesday). Results will be announced as soon as possible, after which POP will conduct follow-up surveys. Media interested in sponsoring these surveys can contact POP.

2. To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 116 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.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,029 Hong Kong people between February 6 and 9 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that compared to half a year ago, most social indicators have risen, many have rebounded from their low point registered six months ago, showing that people appraised the Hong Kong society less negatively. To be specific, the ratings of 5 core social indicators (namely, “democracy”, “freedom”, “prosperity”, “stability” and the “rule of law”) have all record gone up. Those with increments beyond sampling errors include the ratings of “rule of law”, “freedom” and “prosperity”. The ratings of “freedom” and “rule of law” have rebounded from their all record low registered in the last survey. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, only “social welfare sufficiency” has slightly dropped while all others have gone up. Among them, degrees of “equality”, “efficiency” and “corruption-free practices” register significant increases. Besides, 5 among the 10 freedom sub-indicators have gone up, 4 have dropped while 1 remains unchanged. Among them, freedom of “publication” has gone up while that of “strike” has gone down beyond sampling errors. In terms of absolute ratings, among the 10 freedom sub-indicators, only the freedoms of “religious belief”and “entering or leaving Hong Kong” manage to reach 7 marks or above, while that of “academic research” has dropped to all-time record low since this survey series began in 1997. All in all, people continue to consider Hong Kong’s degree of freedom positive. In the area of rule of law, all ratings have gone up, of which the rating of “fairness of the judicial system” has registered significant increase while the latest support rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma has gone up significantly by 2.2 marks to 66.8. The sampling error of rating figure of various indicators is no greater than +/-0.21 mark at 95% confidence level, while that of Geoffrey Ma is no greater than +/-1.9 marks. The response rate of the survey is 70%.

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 overall sample size of this survey is 1,029 successful interviews, not 1,029 x 70.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.

[3] “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 of various indicators not more than +/-0.21 while that of Geoffrey Ma not more than +/-1.9 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.

[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 social indicators, include 5 core indicators, 7 non-core indicators, 10 freedom sub-indicators, 2 rule of law sub-indicators, and the rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li. From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to “rim weighting” based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2016 mid-year and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Here with the contact information for the latest survey:

[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.

Here with the latest figures of the 5 core social indicators:

[7] Starting from February 2011, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 587 to 666, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[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 +/-0.20 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[9] 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.

[10] In three decimal places, the rating of compliance with the rule of law is 6.629 and that of degree of prosperity is 6.626.

Here with the latest figures of the 7 non-core social indicators:

[11] Starting from August 2010, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 536 to 643, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[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 various ratings not more than +/-0.20 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[13] 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.

Here with the latest figures of the 10 freedom sub-indicators:

[14] Starting from August 2010, all questions of sub-indicators only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 575 to 711, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[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 various ratings not more than +/-0.21 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures.

[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.

Here with the latest figures of the 2 rule of law sub-indicators and the rating of the Chief Justice:

[17] Starting from August 2010, all questions of sub-indicators only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 585 to 644, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

[18] 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 +/-0.19 at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures, and that “sampling error is not more than +/-1.9 at 95% confidence level” when citing Geoffrey Ma’s rating.

[19] 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.

Regarding the core social indicators, latest results showed that, on a scale of 0-10, Hong Kong’s degree of “freedom” scored the highest rating with 6.90 marks, followed by “compliance with the rule of law” and “prosperity”, both with 6.63 marks, and then “stability” and “democracy”, with 6.41 and 6.02 marks respectively.

As for the non-core social indicators, “public order” has the highest score of 7.16 marks, followed by “civilization”, “efficiency”, “social welfare sufficiency”, “corruption-free practices”, “equality” and “fairness”, with scores of 6.83, 6.58, 6.21, 6.17, 6.09 and 5.66 marks correspondingly.

As for the freedom sub-indicators, the freedom of “religious belief” scored the highest rating with 8.49 marks. Freedom of “entering or leaving Hong Kong” came second with 7.85 marks. Freedoms of “artistic and literary creation”, “academic research”, “speech”, “procession and demonstration”, “freedom to strike”, “association”, “press” and “publication” formed the next tier, with respective scores of 6.99, 6.91, 6.59, 6.51, 6.48, 6.46, 6.37 and 6.22 marks.

Finally, for the two rule of law sub-indicators, the impartiality of the courts scored 6.73 marks, while the rating of the fairness of the judicial system was 6.35 marks. Meanwhile, the latest popularity rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, a representative figure of the judicial system, was 66.8 marks, on a scale of 0-100.

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 since 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 was conducted from July 18 to 21, 2016, while the latest one was conducted from February 6 to 9, 2017. In between these two surveys, Here with 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.

19/1/17	John Tsang Chun-wah announces that he will run for Chief Executive.
18/1/17	Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying delivers the 2017 Policy Address.
12/1/17	Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announces her resignation and plans to run for Chief Executive.
6/1/17	Media reports on the issue of constructing Palace Museum in West Kowloon.
9/12/16	Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announces he will not seek re-election.
2/12/16	Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung apply for judicial review on the qualifications of lawmakers Lau Siu-lai, Edward Yiu Chung-yim, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Leung Kwok-hung.
15/11/16	The High Court rules that Youngspiration’s Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching are disqualified as legislators.
7/11/16	The National People’s Congress passes the interpretation of Article 104 of the Basic Law.
26/10/16	Retired judge Woo Kwok-hing announces he will run for the Chief Executive.
5/10/16	The secretary general of Demosistō Joshua Wong Chi-fung has been detained for 12 hours in Thailand.
17/9/16	The government admits that Chief Executive CY Leung has chaired a meeting on Wang Chau land development.
2/8/16	A total of seven nominations of the Legislative Council election are decided invalid.

Commentary

Frank Wai-Kin Lee, Research Manager of Public Opinion Programme, observed, “Our latest survey shows that compared to half a year ago, most social indicators have risen, many have rebounded from their low point registered six months ago, showing that people appraised the Hong Kong society less negatively. To be specific, the ratings of 5 core social indicators (namely, ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘prosperity’, ‘stability’ and the ‘rule of law’) have all record gone up. Those with increments beyond sampling errors include the ratings of ‘rule of law’, ‘freedom’ and ‘prosperity’. The ratings of ‘freedom’ and ‘rule of law’ have rebounded from their all record low registered in the last survey. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, only ‘social welfare sufficiency’ has slightly dropped while all others have gone up. Among them, degrees of ‘equality’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘corruption-free practices’ register significant increases. Besides, 5 among the 10 freedom sub-indicators have gone up, 4 have dropped while 1 remains unchanged. Among them, freedom of ‘publication’ has gone up while that of ‘strike’ has gone down beyond sampling errors. In terms of absolute ratings, among the 10 freedom sub-indicators, only the freedoms of ‘religious belief’and ‘entering or leaving Hong Kong’ manage to reach 7 marks or above, while that of ‘academic research’ has dropped to all-time record low since this survey series began in 1997. All in all, people continue to consider Hong Kong’s degree of freedom positive. In the area of rule of law, all ratings have gone up, of which the rating of ‘fairness of the judicial system’ has registered significant increase while the latest support rating of Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma has gone up significantly by 2.2 marks to 66.8. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of various indicators, we leave it for our readers to make their own judgement after reading detailed records shown in our ‘Opinion Daily’ feature page.”

Future Releases (Tentative)

February 23, 2017 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget instant survey

February 28, 2017 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget first follow-up survey

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No. of hits since Jan 1, 2018: 189,618

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Everything carried in this website 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 and messages posted at the opinion platforms. Any responsibility, legal and otherwise, arising from any such item shall vest entirely with its author. The intellectual property of all information contained in this website, including questionnaire design and research reports, originally belongs to HKU POP unless specified otherwise. HKU POP opens their copyright to the world via this website, but would request all users to acknowledge their source properly.

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Last update :  26/6/2019