CASER researchers led and will continue to work on a series of analyses on social and political issues in Hong Kong, based on the comprehensive longitudinal household survey data, Hong Kong Panel Studies of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD) collected in the Special Administrative Region.

HKPSSD is the first-ever city-wide representative, household panel study in Hong Kong that aims to track social and economic changes and their impacts on people’s livelihood in the SAR. The project was implemented by the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, with funding support from Hong Kong Strategic Public Policy Research scheme and Collaborative Research Fund of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.   

Four waves of data collection were completed in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017/2018. The benchmark survey in 2011 includes 7,218 adults and 958 children from 3,214 households, who were subsequently followed up with. In addition, a refreshment sample of 1007 households (including 1960 adults and 477 children) were added in 2014, and the second refreshment survey involving 840 households (including 1,102 adults and 119 children) was added in 2018/19. All main samples and refreshment samples are to be followed up in 2021.

While the project’s initial focus was on family and inequality, survey questions now cover areas such as, population aging and health, community and neighborhood, political participants and national identity, and attitudes toward immigrants, among others. The HKPSSD preserved precious and unique panel data, that would, incidentally, help to unpack the social and political dynamics in a critical decade of Hong Kong’s most recent history.

Current projects based on the HKPSSD include the investigation of social consequences of Hong Kong’s Home Ownership Scheme; the impact of the Occupy Central on longitudinal mental health issues; the dynamics of Hong Kong local identity; neighborhood immigrants changes and identity. These projects utilize multi-level and longitudinal household survey data, together with the census and bi-census data from 1971-2016 (measured every five years), to investigate many critical issues about the trajectory of Hong Kong’s social changes and political dynamics.  

Selected Publications in English

Wu, Xiaogang. 2016 “Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD): Research Designs and Data Overview.” Chinese Sociological Review 48 (2), 162-184  https://doi.org/10.1080/21620555.2015.1129495

Zhang, Zhuoni, Shi Song, Xiaogang Wu. 2017. “Exodus from hunger: The long-term health consequences of the 1959–1961 Chinese famine.” Biodemography and Social Biology 63 (2), 148-166.

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

Miao, Jia and Xiaogang Wu. 2019 “Subjective wellbeing of Chinese elderly: a comparative analysis among Hong Kong, Urban China and Taiwan”  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X19001272