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Annex A
Sample
1
The Readers Digest Poll
The survey was made among 5 groups: students; professionals; senior executives and managers; clerical workers and those in service industries; and fishing, agricultural and production workers. These were defined as income producers and/or decision makers for themselves and their families. The Readers Digest prorated them according to their size and age group in the population and took an opinion poll. This was designed to establish how respondents thought Hong Kong would change after 1997.
Findings
2
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
58.7% thought that their standard of living would be lower; 13.1% thought it would be higher, while 28.2% thought there would be no change.
63.9% thought that there will be less freedom, 34.1% thought there would be no change and 2% thought there would be more. The Readers Digest said that older people
are more worried than the young but gave no figures to support this conclusion.
7% of the respondents have taken action to leave.
24% said they would like to leave Hong Kong but family ties and a sense of filial piety bound them to Hong Kong. The overwhelming majority of Hong Kong's 5.3 million people will therefore remain.