Taiwan topped the list of economies around the Taiwan Strait giving to charities regardless of their location at the end of last year, followed by Hong Kong and China, a MasterCard Worldwide survey said yesterday.
The online survey, which polled 3,500 consumers from 12 markets in the Asia-Pacific region between Nov. 20 and Nov. 29, showed that 77 percent of Taiwanese tend to choose charities regardless of location, far ahead of China, where 56 percent would do so.
“Taiwanese are the most charitable irrespective of country boundaries [among countries in the greater China area] and ranked second in the Asia-Pacific region,” Danny Cheung (張懷堅), MasterCard Worldwide area head for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, told a press conference.
In comparison with China, including Hong Kong, male Taiwanese respondents showed more willingness to give to charity than their female counterparts, and the higher their age, the more charitable they felt, the survey said.
“In particular, Taiwanese respondents aged between 50 and 64 felt the most charitable,” said Eva Chen (陳懿文), the company’s vice president of account management.
Chen said among the reasons for donating to charities at the end of the year, tax breaks topped the list for Taiwanese respondents.
“In Taiwan, 55 percent said tax breaks were their top reason for [making] charitable donations, while only 29 percent tend to feel more charitable because of year-end bonuses,” she said.
While more than 60 percent of respondents from India and the Philippines said they felt less guilty about consuming if they contributed to a charity, only 32 percent of Taiwanese said that they would feel better about spending if they also made a charitable donation, the survey showed.
The survey also showed 52 percent of Taiwanese wanted to start the new year right by a doing good thing, the highest among economies in the Asia-Pacific region.
However, Chen said charitable behavior in Taiwan was hurt the most by the global downturn.
“Up to 42 percent donated smaller amounts because of the financial crunch last year,” she said.
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