iv
Household Size:
Only 7 respondents lived on their own, only 20 respondents in fact
lived with less than 3 other people. The average number of
persons per household was 6. Fifteen of the respondents were the
sole breadwinner in the household and a further 30 respondents
were one of two breadwinners. The average number of wage-earners
per household was 3 indicating that the majority of respondents
shared the breadwinning role with more than one other person.
Places Respondents spent Childhood and Youth:
An overwhelmingly large number of respondents (83) had in fact
grown up in Hong Kong or Kowloon. If the 2 respondents who grew up
in the New Territories are added in, 85 of sample are Hong Kong
bred. Only 14 came from mainland China (mainly Canton). This
origin ties in obviously with the sample's young age, average age
in fact was 291 years. The sample members do not on the whole
therefore appear to have been refugees.
Father/Male Guardians' Occupation:
1
The majority of the sample here had urban, working class fathers,
etc. Again respondents don't appear to be refugee peasants; only
4 came from an ordinary rural background. However, a substantial
minority of the sample, 40, appear to have experienced downward
social mobility in relation to their fathers.
(ii) Job Characteristics of the respondents.
The respondents were employed in the Garments, Textiles, Plastics,
Miscellaneous Metals and Electrics and Electronics industries
with the largest group being employed in the first. All of the
firms were owned locally, two thirds by Cantonese speaking
proprietors and the remaining third by Shanghainese speaking
proprietors. The large majority of the firms were located in the
Kowloon and New Kowloon area with a few being located in the
New Territories. The size of firm the respondents worked for was
controlled for in the survey design and 50 respondents were
selected from small firms and 50 from large firms. All of the
small firms employed 30 or less employees while the number of the
large firms' employees most frequently fell into 1,000 to 1,999
category, while the over 2,000 category had the second highest
frequency here. Comparison of the size of the firms sampled