HKU POP releases the latest social indicatorsBack

POP interviewed 1,007 Hong Kong people between February 13 and 16 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that compared to 6 months ago, among the 5 core social indicators (namely, freedom, the rule of law, stability, prosperity and democracy), the rating of ‘rule of law’ has gone up to a record high since the survey started in 1997, the ‘freedom indicator’ has dropped to record low since 2004, while the ‘democracy indicator’ remains at the bottom. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, besides ‘corruption-free practices’ and ‘efficiency’, all other indicators register significant decreases. The reason for the drop of the ‘freedom indicator’ to an 8-year low, although still high, can be explored from the changes of the 10 freedom sub-indicators. Our survey shows that with the exception of ‘freedom to strike’, all sub-indicators have ratings above 7 marks, meaning that people generally agree that Hong Kong is a free society. However, that of the freedoms of ‘artistic and literary creation’, ‘academic research’ and ‘press’ have dropped to their record lows since 2001, 2002 and 2004 respectively, which warrants attention. Because freedom and the rule of law are both the core values and the cutting edges of Hong Kong society, they need to be constantly monitored and reflected on. The sampling error of rating figure of various indicators is below +/-0.20 mark while that of Geoffrey Ma is below +/-2.4 marks. The response rate of the survey is 66%.

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. All the 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 mid-year 2011. Herewith 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.

Herewith the latest figures of the 5 core social indicators:

[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 various ratings not more than +/-0.16 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
[8] 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.
[9] Starting from February 2011, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 557 to 581, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

Herewith the latest figures of the 7 non-core social indicators:

[10] 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 +/-0.17 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
[11] 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.
[12] Starting from August 2010, these questions only use sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sub-sample sizes of this survey range from 565 to 641, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

Herewith the latest figures of the 10 freedom sub-indicators:

[13] 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.
[14] 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.
[15] 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 532 to 670, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.

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

[16] 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 +/-0.16 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures, and that "sampling error is not more than +/-2.4 at 95% confidence level" when citing Geoffrey Ma's rating.
[17] 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.
[18] 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 546 to 590, and the increased sampling errors have already been reflected in the figures tabulated.
[19] Geoffrey Ma has become the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal since September 1, 2010, and the popularity rating of Ma was asked in this survey, while that of Andrew Li was asked in August 2010 and before.

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 7.39 marks, followed by "compliance with the rule of law" with 7.18 marks, and then "stability", "prosperity" and "democracy", with 7.02, 7.01 and 6.44 marks respectively.

As for the non-core social indicators, "public order" has the highest score of 7.40 marks, followed by "corruption-free practices", "civilization", "efficiency", “social welfare sufficiency", "equality" and "fairness", with scores of 7.37, 7.16, 6.78, 6.22, 6.05 and 5.58 marks correspondingly.

As for the freedom sub-indicators, the freedom of "religious belief" scored the highest rating with 8.71 marks. Freedom of "entering or leaving Hong Kong" came second with 8.55 marks. Freedoms of "academic research", "artistic and literary creation", "publication", "speech", "procession and demonstration", "association" and "press" formed the next tier, with respective scores of 7.70, 7.65, 7.40, 7.35, 7.23, 7.11 and 7.01 marks. Finally, the freedom to "strike" attained 6.69 marks.

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 provide readers with accurate information so that they can 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 since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the “Opinion Daily” feature page as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from August 15 to 19, 2011 while the latest one was conducted from February 13 to 16, 2012. In between these two surveys, 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.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest survey shows that compared to 6 months ago, among the 5 core social indicators (namely, freedom, the rule of law, stability, prosperity and democracy), the rating of ‘rule of law’ has gone up to a record high since the survey started in 1997, the ‘freedom indicator’ has dropped to record low since 2004, while the ‘democracy indicator’ remains at the bottom. As for the 7 non-core social indicators, besides ‘corruption-free practices’ and ‘efficiency’, all other indicators register significant decreases. The reason for the drop of the ‘freedom indicator’ to an 8-year low, although still high, can be explored from the changes of the 10 freedom sub-indicators. Our survey shows that with the exception of ‘freedom to strike’, all sub-indicators have ratings above 7 marks, meaning that people generally agree that Hong Kong is a free society. However, that of the freedoms of ‘artistic and literary creation’, ‘academic research’ and ‘press’ have dropped to their record lows since 2001, 2002 and 2004 respectively, which warrants attention. Because freedom and the rule of law are both the core values and the cutting edges of Hong Kong society, they need to be constantly monitored and reflected on. 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.”

• February 28, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and SAR Government