HKU POP releases the latest figures of Macau year-end survey 2012Back

“New Year Rally” video record for public consumption

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong uploaded the full set of video record of the New Year Rally to the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk). Members of the public are welcome to download the video record from the “New Year Rally Feature page”, and do their own headcount of the Rally. POP also provides all the video clips in higher resolution, available for purchase at production cost. Please go to the website for details.

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 23 and 28 December 2012, POP interviewed 519 Macau people by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers, and found that the popularity of Macau CE Chui Sai On has increased to record high since he became CE in 2009. His support rating now stands at 64.5 marks and net popularity at positive 23 percentage points. For the Macau SAR Government, compared to one year ago, its popularity has not changed much, with a net satisfaction rate of positive 35 percentage points. As for the specific policy areas, in terms of net satisfaction rate, all six areas register positive figure. Their rankings are: Relation with the Central Government at positive 56 percentage points, maintaining economic prosperity at positive 51 percentage points, performance of Macau law enforcement departments at positive 34 percentage points, improving people’s livelihood at positive 21 percentage points, protection of human rights and freedom at positive 21 percentage points, and developing democracy at positive 10 percentage points. Compared to one year ago, people's trust in the Macau SAR Government has gone up by 10 percentage points, its net trust value now stands at positive 54 percentage points. People’s net trust in the Central Government stands at positive 49 percentage points. As for the confidence indicators, including people's confidence in the future of Macau and China, and that in ‘one country, two systems’, all of them have remained highly positive, with net values of positive 70, 79 and 70 percentage points respectively. In terms of ethnic identity, people’s identification ratings of ‘Macau citizen’ and ‘Chinese citizen’ have somewhat increased compared to one year ago, at 8.3 and 8.1 marks respectively. The ratings of 3 out of 4 core social indicators (namely, freedom, stability, prosperity and democracy) have gone up, with ‘prosperity’ and ‘stability’ reaching record high since 2004. However, the rating of ‘democracy’ has gone down slightly and remains at the bottom. Looking back at 2012, Macau people generally give a positive appraisal on the city’s overall development in the year past, with a net satisfaction rate of positive 61 percentage points. Meanwhile, over 70% said they lived a happy life in the year past, significantly higher than the figure registered this time last year, giving a net happiness of positive 66 percentage points. Those who expected next year’s development on personal and societal levels to get better are 59% and 55% respectively. This shows that not only people are satisfied with Macau’s development, they lived a happy life and are optimistic about the future. Besides, if people had to choose between having a prosperous, corruption-free, fair, free or welfare society, most people would opt for corruption-free. Looking ahead, housing is considered the most important problem to be tackled by the government in the coming year. Its percentage is at the highest since 2005. As for people’s New Year wishes, without explicit prompting, close to half made a wish on personal matters, while 30% made a wish on a society-related issue. 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 71%.

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 20 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 findings of the Macau year-end survey 2012. 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 2011 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

I. Popularity figures of Macau CE and the Government

Recent popularity figures of Macau CE Chui Sai On and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the MSAR Government are summarized as follows:

[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 +/-1.5, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error 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.
[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.
[9] Changes between 2011-2012 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.
[10] The ruling Macau CE was Edmund Ho.

The latest survey showed that, CE Chui Sai On scored 64.5 marks, and 51% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is positive 23 percentage points. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the Macau SAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 49% were satisfied, whereas 14% were dissatisfied, thus net satisfaction stands at positive 35 percentage points. The mean score is 3.4, which is between "quite satisfied" and " half-half " in general.

Recent figures on Macau people's appraisal of the six specific policy areas of the Macau SAR Government are tabulated as follows:

[11] 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%, 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.
[12] 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.
[13] The frequency of this series of questions is different from that of CE popularity and SARG overall performance. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals.

Of the 6 specific policy areas, people were most satisfied with the government's handling of its relation with the Central Government, with a net satisfaction rate of positive 56 percentage points. The government’s performance in maintaining economic prosperity followed, attaining a net satisfaction rate of positive 51 percentage points. The performance of Macau law enforcement departments (including the Judicial Police) attained a net satisfaction rate of positive 34 percentage points, while the government’s performance in improving people's livelihood as well as protecting human rights and freedom each attained a net satisfaction rate of positive 21 percentage points. Finally, the net satisfaction rate of the government's performance in developing democracy stands at positive 10 percentage points. The mean scores of these 6 specific areas are 3.7, 3.6, 3.3, 3.2, 3.2 and 3.1 respectively, meaning in between “half-half” and “quite satisfied” in general.

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

[14] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals. 
[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 percentages not more than +/-4% and of net values not more than +/-6% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[16] 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.
[17] Changes between 2011-2012 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.

Latest survey revealed that 72% of the respondents evaluated the policy of the Central Government on Macau after the handover, whereas 3% gave negative evaluations. The mean score is 3.9 marks, meaning close to “quite satisfied”. As for the trust indicators, 65% of the respondents trusted the Macau SAR Government, 60% trusted the Beijing Central Government. The mean scores of these trust indicators are 3.6 and 3.7 respectively, meaning close to “quite satisfied” in general. On the other hand, 82% of the respondents had confidence in Macau’s future and 87% had confidence in China’s future, while 82% of the respondents were confident in “one country, two systems”.

II. Macau people’s ethnic identity

Recent figures on Macau people’s ratings on two separate identities are tabulated as follows:

[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 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.
[19] Changes between 2011-2012 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 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 8.3 and 8.1 marks respectively.

III. Macau people’s appraisal of society’s conditions

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

[20] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals.
[21] 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.
[22] 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 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.
[23] Changes between 2011-2012 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.

Latest survey showed that 72% of the respondents were most concerned with livelihood problems, 21% 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 7.65 marks, followed by “stability” with 7.61 marks, and then “freedom” and “democracy”, with 7.12 and 5.97 marks respectively. As for people’s appraisal of Macau’s new media, on a scale of 0-10, the latest credibility rating of the Macau’s news media in general was 5.79 marks.

IV. Macau people’s 2012 review and 2013 forecast

Herewith the figures of Macau people’s 2012 year-end review and 2013 forecast, compared with similar figures obtained in recent years:

[24] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals.
[25] 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 +/-6% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[26] 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.
[27] Changes between 2011-2012 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.

Looking back at the year past, 69% said they were satisfied with Macau’s development, 8% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 3.7, which is close to “quite satisfied” in general. Meanwhile, 55% expected Macau’s development in general to become “better” next year, 11% said it would be worse. Besides, 54% considered “housing” to be the most important problem that the government should tackle next year, while 14% thought “economy” was the most pressing problem. If one had to choose between a “prosperous”, “corruption-free”, “fair”, “free”, and “welfare” society, 33% of the respondents would wish Macau to become a “corruption-free” society, while 22% and 20% opted for a “fair” and “welfare” society respectively.

Findings also showed that 72% of the respondents said they were happy in the year past, 6% were not. The mean score is 3.8, meaning close to “quite happy” in general. As for the coming year, 59% believed their personal development would become better, 6% thought they would be worse off. With respect to people's New Year wishes, 49% were related to personal matters, 30% were society-related, 12% were world peace-related, 9% did not have any New Year wish.

• January 14, 2013 (Monday) 1pm to 2pm: People’s expectation of CE’s Policy Address

• January 15, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials

• January 17, 2013 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address Instant Poll