A quantitative research was conducted in the study to collect primary data.
Questionnaire surveys were conducted by interviewing 100 homeowners aged 55 or above (i.e. those are eligible to apply RMP) who did not apply RMP. The design of the questionnaire would be elaborated in the following part. Since some of the questionnaires have not been returned successfully, finally 95 numbers of questionnaires were collected.
3.3.1 Data Collection
For the recruitment of interviewees, convenience sampling and snowball sampling were used. For convenience sampling, face to face interviews were conducted near MTR stations and totally 60 numbers of questionnaires surveys were completed. To enhance the representativeness to the population, 20 numbers of questionnaires were conducted near the MTR stations in Hong Kong Island; other 20 numbers of questionnaires were conducted near the MTR stations in Kowloon and the remaining 20 numbers of questionnaires were conducted near the MTR stations in New Territories. For snowball sampling, 40 numbers of questionnaires were passed to my elderly family members. Each of them received 10 numbers of questionnaires and invited interviewees through social networking. However, 5 numbers of questionnaires could not be returned on time. In order to avoid any delay to the completion of this study, only 35 numbers of questionnaires were collected finally. Together with the 60 numbers of questionnaires conducted by face to face interviews, totally 95 numbers of questionnaires were collected for analysis.
3.3.2 Questionnaire Design
The questionnaire is divided into 4 parts and a sample questionnaire is attached in Chapter 8 – Appendix. Before going to Part 1, a brief introduction to the questionnaire interview is provided to familiar the respondents with the interview topic and the aim of the interview.
Also, the respondents would be understood that the information obtained would be confidential and used for research purpose only.
Part I – Screening Questions
The purpose of the screening questions is to ensure the respondents are eligible to apply RMP but did not apply before. Hence, the first question asked if the respondents are aged 55 or above; the second question asked if the respondents own a self-occupied property and the third question asked if the respondents applied RMP. Should the respondents reply “No” for the first and second questions and “Yes”
for the third question, the interview would be ended immediately and would not be used for data analysis.
Part II – Consumer’s Awareness to RMP
The questions asked in this part aim to collect data to assess the consumer’s awareness to RMP, and for the further discussion whether it would be the reason of low participation rate of RMP. Thus, the first question asked if the respondents know RMP has been launched in Hong Kong. Should the respondents reply “No” in this question, he/she does not need to answer the remaining questions in Part II and Part III since those would not be applicable. The second question asked the respondents to rate their level of understating about RMP and the third question asked the respondents from which medium they heard about RMP. The questions aim to assess the respondent’s awareness and understanding to RMP.
Part III – Consumer’s Motivation to RMP
The questions asked in this part aim to collect data to assess the consumer’s motivation to RMP, and for the further discussion whether it would be the reason of low participation rate of RMP.
Therefor the respondents were asked to rate the level of intention of applying RMP and that RMP is favorable to them. To further
investigate the factors affecting the consumer’s motivation, several questions were asked in respect of Programme Content, Legacy Concern and Psychological Factor.
For programme content, 3 questions were asked to rate the favorability in respect of 3 aspects of RMP including “Eligibility”,
“Loan Cost” and “Loan Amount. The high/low favorability in respect
of these 3 aspects would probably affect the consumer’s motivation to RMP.
For legacy content, it is understood from the survey conducted by Leviton in 2001 that elderly homeowners may wish to leave their house to their children. This thought would affect their willingness to apply RMP. Hence, 2 questions were asked to find out whether the respondents would leave their self-occupied property to their children and whether they would worry the future housing needs of their children if they joined RMP.
For psychological factor, it is understood from the survey conducted by Stephanie and George in 2009 that elderly may be skeptical about the financial transactions that were unique or unusual. This thought may also affect their willingness to apply RMP. In this connection, 2 questions were asked whether the respondents will consider not to join RMP and no similar programme launched in Hong Kong before and that RMP is not popular in Hong Kong.
Part IV – Demographic Information
Finally some demographic information was collected in this part of the interview. The gender, age, education level, value of self-occupied property owned, value of asset owned (excluding value of self-occupied property owned) and household member of the respondents were asked. The relationship between these six aspects and the awareness and motivation to RMP of the respondents would be investigated as well.