
OVERVIEW
The Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD) project is the first-ever household panel study in Hong Kong which aims to track social and economic changes in Hong Kong and their impacts on individuals. While the initial focus is on family and inequality, the panel data collection is essentially an inter-disciplinary enterprise that can accommodate other topics of interest to demographers, economists, education and health researchers, political scientists, and sociologists.
OBJECTIVES
• | To build an important infrastructure for social science research through establishing a household panel survey for data collection at both household and individual levels |
• | To facilitate comparative studies of Chinese societies as similar projects were launched in Taiwan and Mainland China |
• | To track social and economic changes in Hong Kong and their impact on individuals through collecting longitudinal data on housing conditions, assets, economic activities, consumption, psychological states, health, and social and family life |
• | To investigate the trends in social and economic inequality and the causal mechanisms, particularly the role of family, education, special events, and social psychological factors in this process, based on cumulative waves of survey data and in a comparative perspective. |
• | To study marriage and family life, particularly gender difference, in the tensions between career and family life, the division of household labor, time use, parenthood and parenting, and the subjective assessment of life. |
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
1. | Education policy: How shall resources be utilized to promote equal educational opportunities for children from disadvantaged families that lack appropriate resources for learning? |
2. | Employment policy: How shall effective government programs be designed to reduce unemployment and the number of the working poor? |
3. | Social policy: How do early family events, poverty, welfare payouts, and early human capital investment affect individuals’ achievements and reduce of intergenerational transmission of poverty? What are the implications for welfare reform in Hong Kong? |
4. | Family and population policy: What kind of government intervention through policies or regulations, can be initiated to solve work-family tensions and hence improve the quality of life of Hong Kong people? |
5. | Immigration Policy: How do new immigrants assimilate into the community? |
Name | Post | Department/Institution |
Professor | Division of Social Science, HKUST |
Name | Post | Department/Institution |
Distinguished University Professor | Department of Sociology, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor | |
Professor | Division of Social Science, HKUST | |
Professor and Head | Division of Social Science, HKUST | |
Associate Professor | Division of Social Science, HKUST | |
Assistant Professor | Department of Applied Social Science, HK Polytechnic University | |
Assistant Professor | Department of Applied Social Science, HK Polytechnic University | |
Assistant Professor | Department of Sociology, University of Macau |
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Samples
The research is a five-year study and adopts panel survey with two cohorts design. A stratified replicated sampling design is used. We will randomly select a sample of addresses from the latest Frame of Quarters of the Census and Statistics Department, HKSAR government, with the stratification factor being the type of housing and the district. We will select 3200 households for interviews in the first wave of the survey. Information on all members aged above 15 living in the same household is to be collected.
Questionnaires
There are two sets of questionnaires for each sampled household: family questionnaire and individual questionnaire. Family questionnaire will include basic information of all co-residing and non-co-residing family members and family structure; family daily life, and housing information and household economics. Individual questionnaire will include basic information such as age, gender, language spoken at home etc., education background, job and career, daily life and psychological states.
Questionnaire will be designed in an electric form by using a Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing System (CAPI) and completed through face-to-face interviews.