Survey on public attitude and perception towards ethnic minorities 2004

Oxfam Hong Kong commissioned Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies (APIAS), Lingnan University to conduct a telephone survey and concealed participatory observation in order to recognize the public (Hong Kong people) attitude and perception towards ethnic minorities. Telephone numbers were selected at random from up-to-date residential phone directories and the target population of the study comprised Chinese speaking male and female adults aged 16 or over. The telephone interviews were conducted on 4 and 5 of August 2004 from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. 512 interviews were completed from the randomly chosen 917 households, and the response rate was 55.8%. Results are subject to a maximum sampling error (MSE) of ±4.3 % at the 95% confidence level. The questionnaire is divided into seven parts with 33 items, including Hong Kong people’s attitudes and perceptions towards ethnic minorities in areas of work and employment, education, utilization of public services, rent and accommodation, friendship and marriage, general perception and the sources of perception formation. A concealed participatory observation was conducted in August 2004 with the aim of understanding the actual employment situation of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong and recognizing whether racial background would be a cause for not being offered job interviews and opportunities. Two female Hong Kong residents with age 19 and similar socio-economic background were employed; one of them is originated from Pakistanis and can speak fluent Cantonese with some Pakistanis accent, the other one is a native Chinese. Both of them applied 50 identical jobs through the Labour Department’s web sites. All of them were elementary occupations in 5 broad categories, including clerk, service employee workers, shop sales worker, office assistant and promoter