Housing tops Macau’s livelihood concerns

The Think Tank of United Citizens and the City University of Macau’s joint report on livelihood issues for the past 20 years has indicated that Macau residents are most dissatisfied with the housing situation of today.

On Friday, the two groups released a research report on Macau’s livelihood index since the handover in 1999, hoping to objectively present the development of the Macau SAR in the past 20 years.

Combining results from 1,108 questionnaires (including 202 online questionnaires) conducted over eight months and official government statistics, the report gave 175.98 points to Macau’s livelihood in 2018, calculated from the base period of 1999, when the index was 100 points.

The research studied a total of 11 livelihood topics, including housing, employment and income, culture and education, medical care and hygiene, transport, social security, public safety, water quality and air quality.

In total, respondents gave 5.92 points to Macau’s overall livelihood conditions. There were huge differences in respondents’ answers when compared with government statistics on residents’ feelings towards transportation, healthcare and housing.

Satisfaction with housing was the worst, only getting 3.8 points. Respondents were most unhappy with private housing prices and the waiting time for public housing, as well as the urban renewal progress.The second lowest ranking was given to transport, with respondents expressing dissatisfaction with parking and traffic jams.The third lowest rank was given to hospitals, with the respondents mainly unhappy about waiting times when receiving treatment.Respondents were most satisfied with social security, followed by education. JZ