Coronavirus: 1 in 5 Hong Kong families unhappy, with mothers suffering more, as overall happiness index of households slips in new survey
- Survey finds 81.1 per cent of 1,633 people interviewed scored six and above on family happiness, but overall index of 6.98 is lowest since 2019
- Mothers found to have been affected more negatively by Covid-19, ranking lower on family and personal happiness, and scoring worse on perceived financial difficulties
One in five Hong Kong families felt unhappy, with mothers suffering more than fathers, while the overall happiness index of households dropped this year because of the city’s fifth Covid-19 wave, a survey revealed on Thursday.
The survey, launched by the happiness advocacy platform HK.WeCARE of Wofoo Social Enterprises and Lee Kum Kee Family Foundation, interviewed a total of 1,633 people via online questionnaires between March and April this year, and found 81.1 per cent of them scored six and above on a scale of zero to 10 on family happiness.
Overall, the city’s family happiness index stood at 6.98, the lowest since 2019, compared with 7.26 in 2021.
“An index of six and above indicates positive. Overall, Hong Kong families fared well, but one-fifth of families were unhappy,” said Professor Daniel Shek Tan-lei, an adviser to the survey conducted by researchers from Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Tung Wah College.
Shek, who is chair professor of PolyU’s department of applied social sciences and former chairman of the Family Council, said the decline this year was mainly due to the fifth wave.
“The worse the pandemic was, the more unhappy the families became,” he said, adding most studies so far were focused on the pandemic’s impact on individuals while there was little research on the impact Covid-19 had on families as a whole.
“Covid-19 has affected not only individuals, but also families and society. We need to take care of the needs of the families who suffered from the Covid disruptions,” he said.
Shek said the 2020 index was not recorded because of the pandemic, while the index stood at 6.89 in 2019, which he attributed to the social unrest that engulfed Hong Kong in the latter part of that year.