Gambling and problem/pathological gambling among ex-offenders in Hong Kong

This paper considers the issue of ex-offenders who can be identified as having an addiction to gambling; one that has been long-neglected in Hong Kong. It reports on a study in which 378 ex-offenders were asked to assess their gambling involvement. The paper identifies the importance of social workers developing a better understanding of this issue in their work with ex-offenders and the findings suggest there is further scope for research and analysis about the extent of this problem and its management.     

The political activities of social workers in the context of changing roles and political transition in Hong Kong

The article reports on a fourth study on the political participation of social workers based on a methodology developed by Gray and Collett van Rooyen (2000). Thus far studies have been conducted in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The present study examined the political activities of social workers in Hong Kong. It begins with a review of the politicisation of Hong Kong's social workers, tracing developments from the 1960s onwards. It then examines the literature on political participation in social work, particularly various typologies of political activity, in order to add to theory relating to this important aspect of social-work practice. Thereafter, it outlines the conceptual framework and methodology used in the study, the results of which provide the basis for the discussion of the political activities of social workers in Hong Kong. It ends with an in-depth discussion of the implications of the findings for the political role of social workers in Hong Kong's changing political context.     

An overview of offender rehabilitation and crime prevention in Hong Kong

This paper provides an overview of offender rehabilitation and crime prevention in Hong Kong by examining the history and background through the course of development of The Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention, Hong Kong (SRACP), from its early establishment as a pioneering organization specialized in the aftercare service of discharged prisoners, to expanding its foothold in psychiatric service and finally extending crime prevention service to the community; with a brief account on the social and economic factors that shape the focus and development of SRACP.     

An exploratory study of different approaches between social work practice and correctional services in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

This paper tries to explore the differences between social work and correctional services from the aspects of professional boundaries, concept, content, construct, context, approach, function, professional identity and relationship with service users. Through these, social workers will be informed what are the limitations of their service in a correctional environment, whilst for correctional officers, a better understanding of the philosophical stance of social services which may be helpful for them in discharging their dual role of law enforcer and social worker under the contemporary correctional policy stressing rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.     

自助团体在香港发展的普遍性与价值性

作为一种重要的社会力量和满足人们需求的资源,自助团体的发展为香港的社会服务带来了新的活力。自助团体提供的服务在某些方面比专业领域提供的服务有效和廉价得多。除了对个人有所帮助外,它还能影响一些社会福利及医疗政策,使团体成员在宏观层面上获益。     

有关港台新儒家价值评判的几个问题

以唐君毅、牟宗三、徐复观为主要代表的港台新儒家是20世纪中国哲学的重要元素。对他们的价值评判应该考虑两个维度:一是理论维度,二是实践维度;应该考虑两个背景:一是横向的中国背景,二是纵向的儒学发展背景;应当运用比较方法探讨其内部的同异,从而把握他们共同的旨趣以及各自的独特性;还需要关注两个敏感问题:一是他们的政治倾向问题,二是他们的文化目标问题。     

The intergenerational transmission of income mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters: The mediating role of their daughters' educational attainment

This study examines whether the daughters' educational attainment mediates the intergenerational transmission of economic mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters. To create mother–daughter dyads, two data sets were combined: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 for Children and Young Adults (NLSY79 CY). A total of 2,456 dyads were included for analysis. We used a mediation model to explore the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income. Mothers' income was associated with their young adult daughters' educational attainment and income. The mediation model indicated partial mediation of the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income via their young adult daughters' educational attainment. Addressing issues of income inequality among mothers may serve as a buffer against the low upward mobility across generations for their young adult daughters raised by low-income mothers. It is imperative to provide programs and financial assistance for mothers to bolster their income and thereby their daughters' educational attainment and income in young adulthood and therefore improve economic mobility from mothers to daughters.     

Poverty alleviation,coverage and fiscal sustainability: Investigating the effect of a new social pension in Hong Kong

This article synthesises the characteristics of social pensions across Asia and evaluates the effect of a new social pension in the Hong Kong SAR, the Old Age Living Allowance (OALA), on poverty alleviation, coverage rates and fiscal sustainability. We found that the effectiveness of the OALA in reducing old‐age poverty was limited, although it has led to an increase of retirement pension coverage by 6%. The OALA is projected to face substantial cost increases in the medium and longer term. Increasing the level of OALA benefits would be a direct means to enhance its poverty alleviation effect but may potentially be hampered by concerns about the fiscal sustainability of such changes. More obfuscated alternatives for Hong Kong policy makers to affect old‐age poverty alleviation include adjusting the indexing rules of benefit level payments and the eligibility criteria to reduce the stigma attached to the current policy choices.     

Journeys of culturally connecting: Aboriginal young people's experiences of cultural connection in and beyond out-of-home care

With growing overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC), cultural disconnection is an omnipresent threat. Despite research and inquiries that have highlighted the risk of cultural disconnection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in OOHC, limited research has explored Indigenous children and young people's experiences of cultural connection in the Australian context. Informed by Indigenous Standpoint Theory, this Aboriginal-led qualitative study sought to understand 10 OOHC-experienced Aboriginal young people's experiences of cultural connection over time, including after exit from OOHC, through retrospective interviews that employed a phenomenological lens. It was found that Aboriginal young people experienced cultural connection as a heterogenous process involving identity formation and the practice of culture, enacted as a choice over time. The complexity of Aboriginal young people's experiences of cultural connection over time gives rise to a new understanding of cultural connection as a journey of culturally connecting, wherein the risk of cultural disconnection is complicated by intergenerational child removals, dominant discourse about what constitutes Aboriginal culture, and removal from an Aboriginal cultural milieu.     

港台社会工作发展路径的比较分析

虽然港台社会工作的发展进程较为一致，但由于二者在历史背景、渊源及社会发展情况等方面存在差异，导致二者在发展路径上存在着“自上而下”与“自下而上”的分殊。大陆应注意两种路径的结合，发挥政府与社会工作界的各自优势，共同推进中国社会工作的进程。     

Presenting a new defamilization and familization framework for investigating the residualization of old‐age income security measures—The case study of Hong Kong

Familization and defamilization studies are increasingly seen as an important component of welfare research. They are concerned with the threats to the welfare of individuals caused by involuntary participation in the unwanted family relationship. Moreover, they address the idea that governments have the potential to reduce these threats through the provision of welfare measures. This article contributes to the familization and defamilizaion studies with the focus on the link between these studies and the studies of residualization strategies. It carries out three analytical tasks. The first is to present a new defamilization and familization framework. The second is to demonstrate the usefulness of this framework in analyzing the problem of employing the residualization strategies to reform the old‐age income security system. Our focus is particularly on the insufficient sensitivity of these strategies to women's (and men's) diverse preferences relating to ways of organizing their family life. The third is to demonstrate the empirical significance of this framework. To meet this objective, we apply the framework to the investigation of two old‐age income security measures in Hong Kong—the Mandatory Provident Fund and the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme.     

Improving primary level home and community care services for older people: The case of Hong Kong

The aims of this study were to assess the impairment levels of users and waitlisted applicants for Hong Kong's Integrated Home Care Services (Ordinary Cases) (IHCS [OC]), reveal their possible hidden needs and potential demand for higher level services, assess their unmet needs for IHCS (OC) and explore whether not using IHCS (OC) was associated with any deterioration in impairment. In all, 567 respondents were clinically assessed twice, over a 6‐month interval, by the Minimal Data Set Home Care questionnaire. The results showed that some moderately or severely impaired respondents had only limited access to higher level services. Some respondents with either no impairment or only low‐level impairment had applied for higher level services. Most waitlisted applicants had not received any IHCS (OC), even after 6 months of waiting. Using IHCS (OC) or not had no significant impact on the deterioration in impairment. Several ways of improving home and community care services are discussed.     

Childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover: Beyond a feminist critique

This article reviews the development of childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover, gauging it with two standards: promoting the equal development of children and gender equality in our society. Statistics derived from data taken from multiple sources show that the government has been sticking to a “positive non‐intervention approach” to welfare development and that the male breadwinner/female carer model prevalent in this region was shaped and strengthened by current childcare policies and services. The current provision of childcare services is insufficient to guarantee the equal use of childcare among children of different socioeconomic backgrounds, or to ease the tension between the needs of childcare and job requirements in a family, or to emancipate married women from the domestic sphere. A “generative welfare approach” that collects fiscal resources and redistributes them strategically with a systemic mind‐set has been suggested for social policy and service planning, including spending the money in the right place, launching smart and practical policies that can achieve both pragmatic effects and ideological improvement in the area of gender equality, providing financial support or subsidies to a company for the provision of parental leave, and increasing the provision of quality childcare services.     

New Economy and New Social Policy in East and Southeast Asian Compact, Mature Economies: The Case of Hong Kong

In the 1970s, as the now compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia were industrializing, their governments had claimed that they saw no need for the kind of welfare programmes developed in Western “welfare states”. Notwithstanding this claim, a study of social welfare development in these economies in the last three decades, particularly when Hong Kong is taken as an example, shows that they have gone for universal social welfare, largely as a result of the growing prosperity and the rising expectations of the people. This trend has, however, been reversed since the start of the Asian financial crisis in the latter part of 1997, with the resultant slowing down of the economy, rising unemployment and surging fiscal deficits. Governments of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia found that they must rethink their social commitments and in order to return to balanced budgets, the former selective approach is now adopted by concentrating social welfare resources on the most needy people. While it is not in dispute that there is a close and positive relationship between industrialization and social welfare, the case of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia shows that as they are more vulnerable to world economic vicissitudes, the relationship may not be as steady as it has been in the Western industrial states.     

Acculturation and adaptation of first‐ and second‐generation South Asians in Hong Kong

This study investigates the experiences of psychological and sociocultural adaptation among 404 first‐ and second‐generation South Asian immigrants in Hong Kong. Results indicate that for first‐generation immigrants, lack of host language fluency, fewer contacts and friendships with host members, the strategy of marginalisation, and perceived discrimination are all related to higher psychological distress, lower self‐esteem and less competence in sociocultural adaptation. For second‐generation individuals, although they reported higher knowledge of the host language and higher preferences the for assimilation strategy, the levels of psychological distress were higher compared with the first‐generation group. An interesting finding of this study is the preference for the marginalisation strategy as opposed to the assimilation and/or separation strategy. The findings of this study highlight the importance of considering the unique experiences of the second generation in order to further our understanding of immigration and acculturation processes.     

Deprivation and the well-being of children and young people in Taiwan

This article draws on data from the second wave of the Taiwan Panel Study of Children and Youth survey to explore the relationship between deprivation and subjective well-being among children and young people in Taiwan using a child-centric approach. The survey data allows the deprivation status of disadvantaged children and young people to be identified using information that they themselves have provided. The results indicate that item-specific deprivation rates and the overall intensity of deprivation are generally higher among children. Further analysis reveals that deprivation is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being and poorer educational outcomes among both groups.     

内地灾害救助的发展及与港、澳的比较思考

内地的灾害救助从灾害管理到灾害的统计、核定、评估,应急预案和响应,从生活救助到恢复重建,从资金物资储备到捐赠,已经形成了较具规模的主体框架,并在救灾实践中得到不断的完善和发展,当然也存在着一些局限。香港、澳门的灾害救助有着各自的特色,香港基金式管理方式和澳门部门联动与灾民中心,为内地灾害救助体系的发展提供了很多思考。     

Life Aspirations: Their Impact on Family and Work Conflict and Life Satisfaction in Hong Kong and Taiwan

Family and work conflict (F/WC) has gained prominence in developed economies in Asia as individuals are faced with the increased demands from work and families that are still considered very important. Hong Kong and Taiwan best illustrate the changing social and economic conditions that have given rise to this conflict. In these two societies, people have demonstrated a strong emphasis on work, even when it entails the sacrifice of family tasks and duties. An array of informal and formal services have been mobilized to allow people to fulfill their duties to work and family. Based on surveys conducted in Hong Kong and Taiwan in late 2009, this paper investigated F/WC and life satisfaction. Specifically, it examined changing life aspirations, both material and non‐material, as predictors of F/WC and life satisfaction. The surveys found that respondents had high aspirations for both their family and their work, and for both material and non‐material assets, and that they experienced high‐level F/WC. Based on the statistical analysis, we argue that minimizing the interference of family life on work and emphasizing non‐material life aspirations could promote better life satisfaction.     

Adolescent Filial Piety as a Moderator between Perceived Maternal Control and Mother–Adolescent Relationship Quality in Hong Kong

This study examined the perceived parental styles of maternal warmth and control, as well as adolescent filial piety, in relation to parent–child relationship quality, in 308 Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. The three mother–child relationship qualities measured were perceived maternal support, conflicts, and relationship depth. Adolescents' attitudes toward filial piety explained unique variance in all three of these parent–child relational qualities, over the constructs of maternal warmth and control. In addition, the interaction of filial piety with maternal control explained unique variance in perceived maternal support and mother–child conflicts, but not relationship depth. Results established the potential unique importance of adolescent filial piety and confirmed our hypothesis that the more adolescents emphasize filial piety, the more parental control exerts a positive effect on mother–child relationship quality in Hong Kong families.     

‘If kids don't feel safe they don't do anything’: young people's views on seeking and receiving help from Children's Social Care Services in England

This paper presents findings from qualitative interviews with 24 young people (11–17 years) who have been referred to Children's Social Care Services in England. The paper explores young people's experiences of help seeking and their experiences of receiving help for maltreatment through statutory agencies. A central finding is the importance of relationships for young people when seeking and receiving help. It is through trusting relationships with professionals that young people are most likely to disclose maltreatment and/or engage with services. The paper concludes that young people's expectations and needs are not always met by the current safeguarding system and that the system needs to become more child‐centred if it is to address the concerns maltreated young people have consistently voiced through research.