Press Releases

WoC publicity and public education campaign effectiveness survey released

The following is issued on behalf of the Women's Commission:

The Women's Commission announces today (December 24) the findings of a survey, which was conducted in three rounds to assess the effectiveness of its publicity and public education campaign.

The Women's Commission launched a large-scale public education and publicity campaign from March 2002 to mid-2003 to enhance public awareness of gender-related issues. The aim was to tackle commonly held misconceptions about the role, value and images of women as well as the ability of the two genders in addition to enhancing public knowledge of the Commission's work.

The survey, in the form of a household survey, also aimed at gauging the community's views and perceptions on gender-related issues, including the need to incorporate women's needs and perspectives in policy making (i.e. gender mainstreaming), factors that deterred women from realising their potential, and the extent of gender stereotyping in society.

The survey revealed that, on the whole, the publicity and public education campaign of the Women's Commission had significantly increased public awareness of the Commission.

"We are pleased to note that more people have become aware of the Commission and its responsibilities. Our various activities, including the announcements in the public interest on television and radio, drama series, radio talk-show programme, fora and seminars, etc. have been achieving their intended outcome.

"Of the people who were aware of the Commission, the majority of them got to know about the Commission from the TV. We shall take this into account in planning future public education and publicity initiatives.

"On the other hand, the survey findings reflect that gender stereotyping is still evident in Hong Kong, particularly in families and academic settings. We believe that public education efforts need to be carried out in reducing gender stereotyping, and the Women's Commission will certainly play a part in this," a spokesperson for the Women's Commission said.

In the survey, 14 per cent of the respondents considered the issue of gender stereotyping very/quite serious and about 35 per cent considered it of average seriousness. When analysed by the people who were aware of Women's Commission's advertisements / promotional activities versus those who were not, it was observed that the former group tended to have a slightly lesser extent of gender stereotyping.

While very few (five per cent) of the respondents have heard of gender mainstreaming before, the majority of the respondents (over 80 per cent) considered it very/quite necessary after they were given explanation on the concept.

"We note that the gender mainstreaming concept is currently not well understood by the community, but the community supports the notion. And the findings show that we need to work further to engage the public and educate them in this respect," the spokesperson said.

The survey found that about 15 per cent of the respondents considered women probably / definitely have not realised their potential owing to such factors as the existence of sex discrimination, the need to take care of children, and etc. Among the females of this group, nearly 30 per cent of them had taken the initiative to enhance their own ability. Close to 60 per cent had furthered their study and attended training courses, whilst over 30 per cent spent more time on reading.

"The survey findings reflect that many local women are interested in capacity building," the spokesperson added.

Reckoning that there were different forms of barriers to women in pursuing learning, the Commission had therefore incubated a Capacity Building Mileage Programme to facilitate the enhancement of all round ability of women as individuals. The Programme would be launched on March 8, 2004. Details of the Programme will be announced later.

The survey asked all female respondents on their major concerns in the coming five to 10 years. In the third round of the survey conducted in July 2003, most (77 per cent) mentioned "health" as their major concern. This might be due to the impact of SARS earlier this year. Following the "health" considerations were concerns about "economic ability" (62.5 per cent) and "the family" (57.6 per cent).

"The survey results have given the Commission better insight and understanding of the women's needs and concerns. We shall bear this in mind in our future initiatives in empowering women," the spokesperson said.

A survey company was commissioned to conduct the three-round household survey, which was carried out at three various stages during the period the Women's Commission's publicity and public education activities were launched (i.e. before, during and after the campaign). In all the three rounds, a total of over 1,200 households were successfully sampled.

The executive summary of the survey findings can be downloaded from the Women's Commission website at http://www.women.gov.hk.

End/Wednesday, December 24, 2003 
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