15.
The respondents' low level of aspirations is further confirmed by their rp
replies to the question on attendance at vocational classes/night school.
Only just over a quarter (27) were currently attending such classes.
These attenders were in fact drawn from the younger section of the sample
only; thus 30% of the younger men and 40% of the younger women attended
whereas none of the older men. and women did. There were also tendencies
for the attenders to be unskilled (35%) or semi skilled (29%) rather than
skilled (14%) and to be employed in large firms (38%) rather than small
firms (168).
We can conclude here that the workers in the sample did not in general
appear to resemble the picture of aggressively arbitious would-be petty
capitalists that has been so frequently painted of workers in Hong Kong
by writers such as England and Rear. However, we should note that the
younger respondents, particularly the younger men were considerable more
ambitious than their elders, suggesting perhans a lack of the refugee
mentality that might have still influenced the older workers despite
their mostly having been brought up in Hong Kong themselves.
ambitious also tended to work in small firms rather than large firms
possibly reflecting the greater contact that would be found in the
former with persons of different social status and with businesses of
The more
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their own.
6
Despite their tendency to have limited aspirations for themselves, the
workers in the sample had high aspirations for their children. Almost
all of the respondents would be prepared to support a son for 5 years
of secondary school education and over three quarters would be prepared
to support a son for a further period of post secondary education both
part and full time. When asked what occupation they would like a son
of theirs to take up, the respondents aimed their sights high; thus 86%
of the respondents who named an occupation named one on the technologist/