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SCMP Reporter

Despite the accelerating global downturn, nearly three-quarters of Hongkongers still consider themselves happy, a survey suggests.
And 69 per cent believe they are  'on track towards realising their true potential', an increase of  5 percentage points from a year earlier.
Still, the proportion of respondents to a Shue Yan University survey who said they were happy was down 6 percentage points from February last year, when it carried out a similar survey.
Fewer people feel safe on the streets, a third expect their quality of life to fall  this year and most believe the economy will worsen.
The university  polled 1,255 respondents by telephone last month. Seventy-three per cent of respondents described themselves as being 'certainly happy' or 'quite happy'.
Thirty-five  per cent said they believed they were protected from violence and crime in their neighbourhood, a drop of  4 percentage points from February last year.
Eighty-five per cent of respondents believed the economy would worsen next year and 32 per cent thought their quality of life would decline. 
Researchers Thomas Yuen Wai-kee  and Mark Greene attributed the pessimism to the worsening world economy. 
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups has found that the proportion of young people hoping to work as civil servants has doubled, to 60 per cent, from six years ago after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. It surveyed 300 people aged 15 to 39.
Close to three in five respondents said they would choose to work for someone else rather than start their own business,  up a third from the proportion in 2003.
Nearly 93 per cent said they disapproved of the idea of spending money before they had earned it, indicating  a wariness of living on credit. 
More than three-quarters did not see the idea of 'making a quick buck' as being particularly smart.
 Federation supervisor Angela Ngai Mei-mui  said  the results of the survey reflected a drop in confidence about the future among young people.  Because they were less confident, they tended to want jobs that were more stable.
'They consider the current financial downturn was mainly caused by human greed,' she said. 'Many have clearly dismissed the attitude of making quick money and would exercise prudence on borrowing or spending on credit.'  




73pc of Hongkongers say they feel happy despite slump