About 85 percent of Chinese technicians, engineers and research scientists are either self-employed or would like to be, according to the latest survey.

The nationwide study of Chinese technicians was run by the China Scientific Research Society between March 2003 and August 2004. Of those surveyed, 22.1 percent strongly desired to start their own business, while 62.5 percent said they were already self-employed.

This is despite the fact that many are not suitable to be self-employed, said Prof. He Guoxiang, as technicians tend to have less understanding of market risk, national policies and entrepreneurial skills since they have spent too much time in labs.

Junior and young technicians are not satisfied with their current status and do not expect their situation to change dramatically in the short term, said He.

The survey involved 7,000 technicians across the country and classified them into five categories: engineers, medical technicians, agricultural technicians, sciences researchers and teachers. According to this classification China had a total of 26.4 million technicians in 2002.

A second survey, published in the latest issue of Chinese Science Bulletin magazine, says that Chinese scientists work more hours than their counterparts worldwide and have less time for recreational activities.

The survey found that scientists worldwide work an average of nine hours a day during weekdays and 5.5 hours at weekends. Chinese scientists work 9.68 hours per weekday and 7.73 hours at weekends. Meanwhile, Chinese scientists participate in the least amount of sports and recreational activities. On average, Chinese scientists go to the cinema, theater or other entertainment venues less frequently than once every five weeks.

Conducted by Yang Weiping, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology, the survey was e-mailed to 321 scientists in different fields around the world and received 196 responses. Among them, 30.6 percent are from Asia, 18.4 percent from North America, 32.7 percent from Europe and 6.1 percent from Australia.

“I did not expect so many respondents because surveys conducted in the form of e-mail usually get a low respondent rate. Not to mention it is a cross-border survey and the target audiences are busy scientists,” said Yang.

Eight scientists claimed that they suffer from insomnia, accounting for 4.1 percent, with nearly half of respondents saying they occasionally experienced it.

Will life become better? More than half of the scientists said “yes.” Chinese scientists were on top of the list in having confidence in the future, where 20 out of 28 believe that life will be better.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2004)