152
From this it will be seen that 24% of the working population are directly dependent for their livelihood upon manufacturing industries (using that term in its widest sense), 21% are employed in the wholesale and retail distributive trades and in banking, insurance and other commerce and finance, 15% in transport and communication and 13% in personal service, the latter including hotels, restaurants, hair dressing etc. in addition to private personal service.
The males in the manufacturing industries outnumber the females by over 5 to 1. In personal service, on the other hand, the numbers are nearly equal, though in most Western countries females greatly outnumber males in these occupations. In the professions the males outnumber females by 3 to 1.
The industries which employ the largest numbers of males and females are stated below :-
INDUSTRIES EMPLOYING THE LARGEST
NUMBER OF MALES.
INDUSTRIES EMPLOYING THE LARGEST
NUMBER OF FEMALES.
Proportion
Proportion
per 1,000
per 1,000
Occupied.
Occupied.
Commerce & Finance
247
Personal Service
274
Transport & Communication...
162
Agriculture
248
Personal Service
92
Transport & Communication
112
Manufacture of Metals, Ma-
Fishing
73
chines, Implements, Convey-
Manufacture of Textiles
57
ances, Jewellery & Watches
63
333
Commerce & Finance
50
Public Administration
and
Entertainments & Sport
37
Defence
62
Building & Decorating
31
Other Industries
58
Manufacture of Clothing
31
Building & Decorating
48
Professions
25
. . . . .
Agriculture
46
Manufacture of Food, Drink
Fishing
42
and Tobacco
21
Wood Working & Manufacture
Other Manufacturing Indus-
of Rattan & Basket Ware
38
tries
11
Manufacture of Clothing
36
Wood Working & Manufac-
Manufacture of Food, Drink, &
Tobacco
25
ture of Rattan & Basket Ware
7
Professions
20
Paper Making,
Stationery,
Books & Photography......
16
Manufacture of Textiles
12
The industries in the list for males account for nearly 97% of the occupied male population and those for females for nearly 98% of all occupied females.
Conclusion.
In compiling a Census Report the writer is confronted with a mass of raw material, from which, by "permutations and combinations", he can produce an almost endless list of tables dealing with various conditions of the population in comparison with other states. But a Census Report, to be of any interest to the general public, must be produced as soon after the Census enumeration as possible. Therefore, the problem before the officer charged with this work is to select such characteristics of the population as are likely to be of general interest and can be computed in as short a time as possible. A report produced in this way does not by any means exhaust the mass of information contained in the tabulated lists as compiled from the original schedule forms. From the figures in hand much more could be done, for example, with both the Occupational and Industrial Classifica- tions of the population.
If there should be in the Colony some one with leisure, interested in the condi- tion of the people of Hong Kong, the material collected at this Census could, doubt, be made available for further research.
no