Covering 5,584 people, the Horizon Research Group's survey was conducted in 10 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and counties in seven regions.

Nearly 59 percent of the surveyed urban people and 72 percent of the surveyed rural people feel "comparatively safe" or "very safe."

As far as feeling safe goes, the gap between people in coastal regions and those in central and western China is 11 percentage points, according to the survey.

However, only 6 per cent of city residents feel "very safe," compared to a much higher 19 per cent of farmers, according to the survey.

When compared to the company's survey of last year, the survey shows that urban residents feel less safe this year than in 1999, especially in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Among the five cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu, residents of Shanghai feel the safest, according to the survey.

The survey shows that residents in Guangzhou of Guangdong Province feel less safe than in all the other cities surveyed.

The survey indicates that a sense of security is connected with gender, age, income and education.

Men feel safer than women. Senior citizens feel less safe than the young.

People surveyed with higher education levels and salaries feel safer than their opposites.

(China Daily 12/13/2000)