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Survey Findings on HKSAR Government’s Popularity in February 2019 Released by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at CUHK
A telephone survey was conducted from 15 to 21 February 2019 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to study the popularity of the HKSAR Government. A total of 709 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 37.5%. The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.68 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Major findings are summarised as follows:
Satisfaction with the HKSAR Government. According to the survey, 27.6% of the 709 respondents expressed satisfaction towards the HKSAR Government, 35.5% said they were dissatisfied, and 36.4% answered ‘in-between’. The corresponding figures for January 2019 were 26.6%, 37.8%, and 34.9%, respectively. The statistical analysis shows that the results for February 2019 were not significantly different from those of January 2019. When comparing the figures with that from the same month last year (i.e. February 2018), it was found that the percentage of satisfaction in February 2019 (27.6%) was lower than that of February 2018 (32.4%). The difference in percentage distribution between February 2019 and February 2018 was statistically significant.
Rating of Chief Executive Carrie Lam. The survey in February 2019 indicated that the performance rating of Chief Executive Carrie Lam (with a point scale ranging from 0 to 100, 50 as the passing mark) stood at 51.7 on average, slightly lower than the rating for January (50.9). The statistical significance test (t-test) shows that the mean difference between the rating in February 2019 and the rating in January 2019 was not statistically significant. However, when comparing her current rating (51.7) with that of February 2018 (55.6), the mean difference of the two months was statistically significant.
Ratings of Three Secretaries. The ratings of the Chief Secretary for Administration (Matthew Cheung), Financial Secretary (Paul Chan) and Secretary for Justice (Teresa Cheng) in February 2019 were 48.4, 41.3 and 36.1 respectively. The corresponding figures in January 2019 were 48.0, 40.7 and 35.9. The comparison of the ratings of the three Secretaries between February 2019 and January 2019 shows that no statistically significant differences were found. However, when their ratings in February 2019 were compared with the respective figures in February 2018, statistically significant differences were found for all the three Secretaries.
Trust in the HKSAR Government. As of February 2019, 28.6% of the respondents showed trust in the HKSAR Government and 26.7% expressed distrust; 43.2% answered ‘in-between’. The results in January 2019 were 27.4%, 27.3%, and 44.0%, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in trust in the HKSAR Government between February 2019 and January 2019. Although the figure in the current survey with those of February 2018 shows that the percentage of trust in the HKSAR Government in February 2019 (28.6%) was lower than that of February 2018 (34.2%), no statistically significant difference was found between these two months.
Trust in the Central Government. Regarding the level of trust in the Central Government in February 2019, 22.5% said they trusted it, 38.8% answered the opposite, and 34.7% said ‘in-between’. The respective figures from January were 21.2%, 40.8%, and 33.8%. Statistically significant differences were not found between February 2019 and January 2019. Again, the difference between the percentages in February 2019 (Trust: 22.5%; Distrust: 38.8%) and the percentages in February 2018 (Trust: 24.8%; Distrust: 39.6%) was not statistically significant.
