With the help of 46 Year One and 4 Year Two mentors, Professor Dennis Wong Sing-wing, Associate Dean (Student Life and Learning), and his team conducted a survey entitled “Happiness Index: Comparison of Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea” in early January 2016. More than 1,100 citizens in Hong Kong, Osaka and Seoul were interviewed, and 3,453 questionnaires were collected. The survey results were announced in a press conference on 25 January 2016.

The aim of the survey was to gain an understanding of the personal feelings of the interviewees in 2015, specifically their self-perceived happiness (with a minimum score of 1, indicating “not happy”, and a maximum score of 10, indicating “very happy”) and their satisfaction with their quality of life in six areas: politics and society; economy; environment; public health; leisure and entertainment; and housing (with a minimum score of 1 and a maximum score of 10).

Hong Kong scored lowest in the Happiness Index (6.83), followed by Seoul (7.01) and Osaka (7.41). The overall score for Hong Kong in the Happiness Index was slightly (0.15) lower than that in the previous year, showing that local people are still unhappy. Compared with the 2014 results, the scores for Hong Kong were lower in 2015 for all six areas of quality of life except public health, which showed some improvement.

Compared with Osaka and Seoul, Hong Kong achieved the lowest scores for respondents’ satisfaction with their quality of life. The Hong Kong respondents felt most dissatisfied with housing (4.05), followed by politics and society (4.33) and the environment (4.80). Hong Kong’s score for housing was noticeably lower than those of the other two cities (Osaka: 6.45; Seoul: 6.19).

The research team attributed local people’s dissatisfaction with housing to a shortage of public housing, exorbitant house prices and an ineffective government housing policy. Professor Wong also noted that numerous controversial issues, such as the discovery of the excessive lead content of Hong Kong drinking water, the universal retirement protection scheme and the Copyright (Amendment) Bill of 2014, have aggravated the polarisation of Hong Kong society and led to dissatisfaction with the government. In terms of the environment, the research team believed that local people’s health is threatened by the ongoing deterioration in air quality in Hong Kong due to factors such as climate change and cross-border pollution. These factors explain why the scores obtained for quality of life in Hong Kong in these three areas were below the threshold for acceptability.

Photo 1: Professor Dennis Wong Sing-wing and his research team, showed the happiness index of Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.
Photo 2: Many media have been invited to attend the press conference.
Photo 3: Students’ work will be displayed in Discovery Festival during 2nd – 4th Feb, 2016 in CityU.