CUHK
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The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) conducted a telephone survey from 9 October to 25 October 2024 to gauge public views on Hong Kong people’s intentions of emigrating overseas or moving to mainland China. The major findings include:

The respondents were asked to rate Hong Kong’s liveability on a scale from 0 (very unliveable) to 100 (very liveable), with 50 indicating a neutral attitude. The current average rating for Hong Kong’s liveability was 60.8, which was statistically significantly higher than that of last year (56.5).

When asked if they would emigrate overseas if they had the chance, 34.1% of the respondents said yes, 3.6 percentage points lower than last year (37.7%), but the difference in percentage distribution was not statistically significant. Of those who would like to move, 26.6% had prepared to do so, which was 6.6 percentage points lower than last year (33.2%), but the difference was not statistically significant. The percentage of the whole sample who had prepared to move (9.0%) decreased by 3.3 percentage points compared to last year (12.3%); the difference was also not statistically significant.

Of those inclined to go, apart from the 27.6% who had not yet decided where they would move, the most popular destination was Australia (12.7%), followed by the UK (10.4%), Canada (9.7%) and Taiwan (7.9%).

Aggregated and sorted from the respondents’ open answers, the top four push factors for respondents intending to move were “dismal economic situation/overcast economic future” (23.8%), “undemocratic political system” (14.9%), “excessive political disputes/unstable politics” (14.1%), and “poor living environment/congested living space” (12.5%). The top four pull factors were “good living environment/ample living space” (25.4%), “more liberty/freedom of expression” (15.5%), “family members’ preference/family reunion/having relatives and friends there/having the right of abode” (11.4%) and “democratic political systems” (10.2%).

Among those inclined to move overseas, 48.3% never worried about their life after migration; however, 21.5% were concerned about “difficulty in finding a job”. “insufficient income or savings” (20.5%) and “failure to adapt or integrate into the local society” (14.0%) were another two common concerns. On the other hand, when respondents who had no plan to move abroad were asked whether the reasons were related to concerns about life after migration, 18.0% answered that they were not and 28.1% said they had “never thought about migration”. However, 17.9% admitted they chose not to migrate because of the fear of “failure to adapt or integrate into the society” and 9.1% replied that they were worried about “insufficient income or savings”.

About three-fifths of the respondents (59.8%) reckoned that the current “tidal emigration” is a loss to the long-term development of Hong Kong, while a fifth of them (20.8%) did not see any impact. Only about a tenth (10.5%) had a positive outlook. There were no statistically significant differences in the percentage distribution between this year’s and last year’s surveys.

The survey also asked about respondents’ intention to move to mainland China. One-fifth (20.7%) of the respondents said they would like to do so, almost the same as last year (20.3%). The top four push factors were “excessive consumer prices” (46.9%), “poor living environment/congested living space” (27.9%), “high-flying housing prices” (13.8%) and “dismal economic situation/overcast economic future” (9.0%). The top four pull factors from mainland China were “lower consumer prices” (54.8%), “good living environment/ample living space” (42.6%), “affordable housing prices/easier to own a residence” (10.9%) and “stable social order/good public security” (7.0%).

The survey employed a dual-frame sampling design that included both landline and mobile phone numbers. A total of 711 respondents aged 18 or above (landline: 201; mobile: 510) were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 56.4% (landline: 45.9%; mobile: 60.6%). The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.68 percentage points at 95% confidence level. Furthermore, the data in this survey was weighted 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 before analysis.