Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics

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

This project may contribute to the government’s policy making in the following areas:

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?

STUDY INVESTIGATORS

Principal Investigator

Name	Post	Department/Institution
Prof. Xiaogang WU	Professor	Division of Social Science, HKUST

Co-Investigators

Name	Post	Department/Institution
Prof. Yu XIE	Distinguished University Professor	Department of Sociology, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Prof. James KUNG	Professor	Division of Social Science, HKUST
Prof. Raymond WONG	Professor and Head	Division of Social Science, HKUST
Prof. Michelle YIK	Associate Professor	Division of Social Science, HKUST
Prof. Juan CHEN	Assistant Professor	Department of Applied Social Science, HK Polytechnic University
Prof. Anita KOO Ching-hua	Assistant Professor	Department of Applied Social Science, HK Polytechnic University
Prof. Hongyu WANG	Assistant Professor	Department of Sociology, University of Macau

OTHER PANEL STUDIES

Household Panel Studies Around The World

Household panel study is a longitudinal study of nationally representative families and individuals that collects data to track their personal, social and economic changes. One of the most famous panel surveys that have greatly facilitated the development of modern social science research is the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) begun in 1968 in the United States.

Household panel data have not only sparked social policy and behavioral studies within each country but have also increased studies of policy and behavior across countries. A project titled Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) was built to use country-based survey data for cross-national comparative study. The CNEF collects panel survey data in the following countries:

	1.	The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for Great Britain;
	2.	The Household, Labor and Income Dynamics (HILDA) Survey for Australia;
	3.	The Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) for the South Korea;
	4.	The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) for the United States;
	5.	The Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for Germany;
	6.	The Survey of Labor and Income Dynamics (SLID) for Canada; and
	7.	The Swiss Household Panel (SHP) for Switzerland.

Apart from the CNEF, another project titled “Family Life Survey (FLS)” conducts household and community surveys in developing countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Guatemala, and Bangladesh.

Particularly in Chinese societies, similar panel survey projects have been launched in Taiwan (Panel Study of Family Dynamics, PSFD) and in mainland China (Chinese Family Panel Studies, CFPS). In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD) is the first-ever panel study that will definitely facilitate comparative studies among the Chinese societies.

For details of cross-cultural survey guidelines, please click the following link
http://ccsg.isr.umich.edu/intro.cfm

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.

Zhang, Zhuoni. & Ye, Hua. (2018). Mode of Migration, Age at Arrival, and Occupational Attainment of Immigrants from Mainland China to Hong Kong. Chinese Sociological Review. 50(1): 83–112 Detail…

Zhou, Muzhi, Xiaogang Wu, and Guangye He. (2017). “Marriage in an immigrant society” Education and the Transition to First Marriage in Hong Kong” Demographic Research 37: 567-598

Zhang, Zhuoni. , Song, Shige. & Wu, Xiaogang. (2017). Exodus from Hunger: The Long-Term Health Consequences of the 1959-1961 Chinese famine. Biodemography and Social Biology. 63 (2). 148 - 166. doi:10.1080/19485565.2017.1311203