Even Hong Kong’s happiest places have their problems
- Baptist University survey suggests North district ranks highest on the city’s happiness scale, but social workers and youth groups disagree
- Locals point to conflict with neighbouring Shenzhen area which lies just across the border in mainland China
According to a university study, Hong Kong’s northernmost district is the happiest of the city’s 18 areas, but not everyone agrees.
Findings of the Baptist University survey showed that North district, located next to the mainland city of Shenzhen, scored 69 out of 100 in the happiness index. Sham Shui Po, among the poorest districts in Hong Kong, came bottom with a score of 37.
The study has not looked into why there were such differences in happiness level across districts. But Professor Adrian Bailey, dean of the university’s faculty of social sciences who led the study, believed that the top score in the north could be because there is more space available there.
“The global research suggests that rural places are always happier than urban places. So the less dense an area is, the happier people are,” Bailey said. “The explanation is typically given for that social capital.”
The happiness index from the study was arrived at after researchers interviewed 1,851 youngsters aged between 17 and 23. In the survey, which included a wide range of questions concerning well-being, young adults were asked to choose whether they were “very happy”, “rather happy”, “not very happy”, “not at all happy” or “don’t know”. Based on their assessment, the researchers come up with a ranking for the districts.