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The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies conducted a telephone survey from 28 May to 24 June 2024 to gauge public views about social mobility in Hong Kong. Of the respondents, 53.3% said that the opportunities for upward mobility were not enough for Hong Kong’s young people, and 43.3% thought the opportunities for upward mobility for young people would get worse in the next 10 years or more.

In addition to the 53.3% of respondents who said Hong Kong currently did not provide enough opportunities for upward mobility for young people, 32.1% answered “in-between” and only 10.7% said that there were enough. Compared to a similar survey conducted in March 2023, the figure who believed Hong Kong currently did not provide young people with enough opportunities for upward mobility increased by 7.9 percentage points, while the figure who said that there were enough opportunities decreased by 6.8 percentage points. The statistical analysis (chi-square test) showed that the results for 2024 were statistically significantly different from those for 2023.

When the respondents were asked whether the opportunities for upward mobility for young people would be better in the next 10 years or more, 43.3% of them predicted that they would get worse, 26.4% predicted they would be similar to the current situation and 19.7% predicted they would be better. The numbers of those who predicted that they would get worse increased by 10.0 percentage points from the previous survey, while the percentage of those who predicted it would be similar to the current situation and those who predicted it would be better decreased by 2.8 and 11.4 percentage points respectively. A statistical test showed that the percentage distributions of the two surveys were statistically significantly different.

65.0% of the respondents said that the opportunities for upward mobility for young people had worsened compared to 10 years ago, which was 16.5 percentage points higher than the corresponding figure in the previous survey, while 14.9% replied it was similar to 10 years ago and 14.5% said it had improved, which were 14.5 and 2.6 percentage points respectively lower than the corresponding figures in the previous survey. The difference between 2024 and 2023 was statistically significant.

All respondents were asked whether young people would have better opportunities to become successful if they pursued their careers in mainland China: 27.7% replied they would, an increase of 6.1 percentage points from the previous survey; 45.8% answered “half-half”, an increase of 4.3 percentage points; and 19.6% said they would not, a decrease of 8.3 percentage points. The percentage distributions of the two surveys were statistically significantly different.

When asked whether young people would have better opportunities for success if they pursued their careers in foreign countries, 20.8% replied they would, an increase of 2.9 percentage points from the previous survey; 47.6% of them answered “half-half”, an increase of 4.2 percentage points; and 24.4% said they would not, similar to the corresponding figure last time (24.0%). The percentage distributions of the two surveys were statistically significantly different.

Regarding personal experiences of social mobility in the past five years, 53.3% of the respondents said that they had been stationary, a decrease of 9.5 percentage points from the previous survey; 20.8% thought they had moved downward, an increase of 2.8 percentage points; and 19.5% felt that they had moved upward, an increase of 4.4 percentage points. The difference between 2024 and 2023 was found to be statistically significant.

Concerning predictions of personal social mobility opportunities in the next five years, 48.5% of the respondents said that they would not change, 24.6% predicted that they would move downward and 20.2% predicted that they would move upward. The percentage distribution this year was found not to be statistically significantly different from last year’s (would not change: 54.0%; would move downward: 22.3%; would move upward: 15.8%).

Lastly, when asked about the meaning of upward mobility, 39.2% of the respondents answered that it was having a “higher quality of life” (an increase of 1.0 percentage points from the previous survey), followed by “more wealth and a better career” (25.2%), a “higher education level” (20.6%) and a “stronger influence on society” (7.7%). The results for 2024 were statistically significantly different from those for 2023.

The survey employed a dual-frame sampling design that included both landline and mobile phone numbers. A total of 705 respondents aged 18 or above (landline: 172; mobile: 533) were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 49.3% (landline: 49.6%; mobile: 49.2%). The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.69 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. The weighting of survey data was based on the probability of the respondents being selected via dual-frame sampling design and relevant age-sex distribution of the population published by the Census and Statistics Department.