Leading Article: Welfare Development in the Midst of Political Uncertainty

On 1st July 1997 Hong Kong will be transformed from a British colony into a Special Administration Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. Although the Basic Law, a mini-constitution for the future SAR government, states that “Hong Kong's capitalist system and lifestyle will remain unchanged for 50 years after the establishment of the SAR”, changes are perceived to be inevitable, not least in respect of the welfare policies to be implemented by the future SAR government. Indeed, since the signing of the Joint Declaration in 1984 between the British and Chinese Governments on the future of Hong Kong, the existing Colonial Government has been enlarging its role in the social services and making relevant policies more responsive to the needs of the people. These reforms have largely been carried out in line with the democratization process which Hong Kong has been undergoing in recent years. To what extent will these changes in welfare policies continue after 1997? It is argued here that with the enlargement of democracy, and especially the establishment of political parties claiming to represent the interests of the people, it would no longer be possible for Hong Kong to return to residual-type welfare programmes. While it would be unlikely for Hong Kong to develop into a “welfare state”, the future development of social services in Hong Kong would probably command widest acceptance if policies keep in line with the prevalent welfare ideology which stresses, on the one hand, the self-reliance of the people and, on the other, the responsibility of government to look after weaker members.     

新管理主义时代香港社会福利领域NGO之发展

全球第三部门正处在发展的十字路口,面临转型的挑战。本文运用个案研究方法,试图探讨20世纪90年代以来新管理主义如何影响香港社会福利领域NGO的发展。研究发现,尽管新管理主义的价值观已深植于NGO领域,但不同个案机构对其影响的回应不尽相同;组织的社会倡导价值对于市场化价值的妥协在本研究中虽有体现,但如何使商界更加关注社会福利的改善正日益成为香港NGO实践其倡导价值的新关注点。     

Demise of the Developmental State? Implications for Social Policy Development in Hong Kong

This paper argues that Hong Kong is now at the crossroads of its journey towards social policy development. While economic development still seems to be the unwavering objective of the Hong Kong government, the demand for democracy and social development can no longer be ignored because of a strong civil society fostered by economic success. The current state of affairs provides a window of opportunity for the Hong Kong government to strengthen its legitimacy through the development of social policy and to promote social harmony through inclusivity in social welfare. The findings from the present empirical survey conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia‐Pacific Studies (HKIAPS) in 2010 demonstrate that Hong Kong people identified social harmony as the main direction for social development, closely followed by economic development, and democracy and freedom. Respondents who chose social harmony as the main goal of social development were more likely to take a step back and find common ground when fighting for their own rights or the rights of society. This paper concludes that these findings reflect the crucial importance of taking social harmony into consideration in the social policy development process.     

The reform of the developmental welfare state in East Asia

This article examines social policy reforms in East Asia and whether the welfare states in the region became more inclusive in terms of social protection while maintaining their developmental credentials. It draws on findings from the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) project on social policy in East Asia, covering China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan Province of China, and Thailand. It shows that East Asian economies responded differently to the crisis in terms of welfare reform. While Singapore and Hong Kong maintained the basic structure of the selective developmental welfare state, Korea, Taiwan, and, to a lesser extent, Thailand implemented social policy reforms toward a more inclusive one. Despite such different responses, policy changes are explained by the proposition of the developmental welfare state: the instrumentality of social policy for economic development and realization of policy changes through democratization (or the lack of it).     

Social Citizenship Rights and the Welfare Circle Dilemma: Attitudinal Findings of Two Chinese Societies

This paper places social citizenship momentum into the context of squaring the welfare circle for examination. Citizenship is a powerful world-level organizing principle especially by the minority groups for their claim of equal treatment. The squaring of welfare circle refers to the need of the governments to constrain their budgets but also meet the rising demands from and needs of their people. This comparative study looks at the attitudinal findings of two Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan to see whether or not the cultural factor can mitigate the momentum of social citizenship rights and the demand side of the welfare circle. Implications for social policy are also discussed.     

Welfare through Work: An Audit of Occupational Social Provision at the Turn of the New Century

Occupational welfare has been a relatively neglected area in both theoretical and empirical studies of the welfare state despite its importance to overall levels of social provision. Surprisingly, there has not yet been a comprehensive examination of British occupational social provision, as opposed to non‐wage benefits more generally or specific provision such as pensions, housing or childcare. This neglect can be explained both by the perception that occupational welfare plays a relatively insignificant role in contemporary welfare states and by a general lack of clarity regarding its definition and scope, factors which have added to the difficulties surrounding its conceptualization and measurement. Despite the lack of attention it has received, however, recent pressures have propelled the issue higher up the social policy agenda, increasing the need for a clearer conception of what constitutes occupational social provision and a more comprehensive assessment of its contemporary significance. This paper seeks to shed some light on to these areas by drawing on comparative and UK data in order to carry out an audit of occupational social provision.     

Altruism,Social Responsibility,and Government Support For Social Welfare

The study concerns altruistic behaviour in Hong Kong and its relation to social responsibility and support of government responsibility for social welfare. The findings indicated that the community as a whole is likely to engage in altruistic acts. The responses reflect a sense of social responsibility as the most important factor contributing to the explanation of altruism. Independent of other characteristics, those respondents who were more socially responsible were more altruistic. These findings suggest that the people's willingness to help others is largely independent of concern about the interests of society as a priority of responsibility. The general finding is that people are more concerned with individual or familial interests and would sacrifice the interests of society in situations where the two are in conflict.     

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.     

Protecting the ageing poor or strengthening the market economy: the case of the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund

The Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) launched by the Hong Kong government seems to be a residual welfare state's strategy to cope with an ageing population and, at the same time, preserve a minimal welfare state and further enhance economic development. The MPF can only provide limited protection for a limited number of employees; many older people still have to depend on financial support from their families or have to work. On the other hand, the MPF immediately boosts the economy by creating more jobs for the financial services sector and by providing more business opportunities for banks and insurance companies. Thus, the MPF has consolidated the foundation of Hong Kong's capitalism by socialising and incorporating the whole working population in the market economy but has provided little protection for their old age.     

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.     

The Third Way and Social Welfare: The Myth of Post-emotionalism

The “passive” welfare state was accused of promoting a dependency culture. “Active” welfare and the “what works?” approach of Britain's New Labour government is allegedly implicated in an age of post‐emotionalism, in which people are largely indifferent to the needs of others and committed primarily to their personal well‐being. This article, first, seeks to extend recent debates about agency and motivation in social policy and relate them to the notion of post‐emotionalism. Second, it draws on a recent empirical study of popular and welfare provider discourses, which suggests that popular opinion can accommodate an appreciation of human interdependency, while welfare providers remain committed to a public service ethos. None the less, Third Way thinking is associated with a narrowing of solidaristic responsibilities. The problem for the future of health, social care and state welfare policies lies not with the imagined consequences of post‐emotionalism, so much as with an ideological context that perpetuates a distorted ethic of responsibility.     

Social work in Hong Kong – Western practice in a Chinese context

This article narrates the development of social work practice in Hong Kong during the last more than half a century. As in other British colonies, social work was first known as a profession in Hong Kong when Western international relief organizations established offices here after the end of World War II. While social work has always been seen as a Western introduction, both overseas and locally trained social workers in Hong Kong are conscious that they are practicing in a society with a strong tradition of Chinese culture and there is also a different view towards the concept of welfare. Other than examining how social workers in Hong Kong have adapted Western developed theories to the solution of local problems in a Chinese society, this article concludes with a discussion of the influence that social workers and social work educators in Hong Kong have made on the development of social work in mainland China.

本文叙述了半个多世纪前社会工作在香港的发展。 如同在其它英国殖民地一样， 当第二次世界大战结束后西方国际援助组织在香港成立办事处， 社会工作在香港才首度被视为一个专业。 社会工作通常被看作为由西方引进的产物， 在本地或海外受训的香港社会工作者均意识到他们在社区从事社会工作时， 有着强烈的中国文化传统， 同时对福利概念有着不同的观点。 除了研究香港社会工作者如何适用西方的成熟理论， 以解决在中国社会发生的本土问题外， 本文还讨论了香港社会工作者及社会工作教育工作者如何影响中国内地社会工作的发展。     

The Development of State Welfare in the Asian NICs with Special Reference to Taiwan

This paper explores Taiwan's welfare development from its specific politico-economic situation. Although education and public health are well developed in Taiwan and social insurance is expanding to cover more and more Taiwanese people, the govenmental welfare effort is still too low to meet the welfare needs of the public. This is especially so given our discovery that military servicemen and related groups receive over 70% of the welfare expenditure of the central government while the disadvantaged receive only around 3%. Furthermore, political crises are often accompanied by a significant growth in social expenditure, implying that the purpose of state welfare is to maintain the stability of the Taiwanese state rather than to protect the well-being of Taiwanese people. Political isolation forces the Kuomintang (KMT) to secure Taiwan's role in the international community via economic growth. The development of state welfare cannot be allowed to have a negative effect on this highest priority. The limited resources, therefore, are allocated to economic goals as well as to the KMT–state apparatus in order to keep the KMT in power. However, the democratization of Taiwanese politics since the 1980s has forced the KMT to consolidate its legitimacy from the people and the improvement of social welfare is one measure for this purpose. Whether or not Taiwan becomes a Western-style welfare state through the expansion of state welfare in the near future, it furnishes a useful example with which to examine existing welfare theories.     

老年社会福利的香港模式解析

香港的老年社会福利由老年社会救助、养老保险和老年福利服务三大子系统构成,并具有福利主体的多元化、福利对象的补救性与普救性兼顾、高福利支出与低福利系数并存、高福利服务质素及福利资源有效整合等特征,同时也存在着福利经费来源可能单一化和非政府福利服务机构可能“行政化”等问题。香港老年社会福利模式对于内地具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Low Public Expenditures on Social Welfare: Do East Asian Countries have a Secret?

This paper explores the sources of low public expenditures on social welfare in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Six factors are analysed based on aggregate data: the public/private mix of welfare programmes, the age structure, the maturity of old-age pension schemes, the population coverage of social security, the relative generosity of social security and the role of enterprises and families as alternative providers of welfare. The evidence allows putting some conventional statements about the virtues of East Asian welfare states into questions. Public expenditures on welfare are bound to rise a lot in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, while the level of protection in Hong Kong and Singapore is well below the standards of Western countries.     

Social Policy in a Cold Climate: Health and Social Welfare in Russia

The Russian Federation faces multiple challenges for its health and welfare systems and for the development of social policy responses. This article provides a review of some of the key challenges for social policy in Russia and assesses the adequacy of the responses to date. The author surveys recent developments in health and social welfare and makes recommendations on priorities for Russia's policy‐makers and international funders. A range of public health challenges including drug and alcohol misuse, health in prisons and mental health is discussed; HIV/AIDS is singled out for particular attention. While Russia is increasingly attracting the attention of social scientists in the West, there is uncertainty about models and concepts suitable for the analysis of this complex society. Although empirical trends are largely discussed in this article, it is argued that theoretical development is required and some suggestions are made about concepts of the ‘middle range’ to assist in future analyses. Intermediate theories, such as those relating to the management of personal welfare, and development of resilience in a formerly collectivized context, are identified as having explanatory potential for this task.     

A comparative study of social assistance systems in Macao and Hong Kong

This article compares social assistance systems in Macao and Hong Kong. It finds that Macao delivers a higher level of social assistance benefits, whereas Hong Kong has a larger group of social assistance beneficiaries. The Hong Kong Government spends a larger amount on social assistance provision and imposes tougher controls on the recipients, compared to Macao. The results of the comparison indicate that Macao and Hong Kong differ markedly in the type of productivist welfare regime they belong and challenge the assertion that the two welfare systems form a distinct welfare model.     

Welfare state dissatisfaction and support for major welfare reform: Towards means-tested welfare or a universal basic income?

This research note investigates how people combine their views on two radically opposing welfare reforms: a universal basic income and a fully means-tested welfare state. Using data from the 2016–2017 European Social Survey, we found that support for transformative welfare reform is rooted in perceptions of the performance of the current system. The preferred direction of reform, however, strongly depends on the specific aspects of the welfare state people are happy or unhappy with. At the country-level, we show that underperforming welfare states—in terms of higher poverty rates and lower social spending—increase popular demand for transformative welfare reform, in either direction. These findings are of crucial importance for ongoing debates about the future of the welfare state.     

Welfare attitudes and social class: the case of Hong Kong in comparative perspective

Based on a survey of Hong Kong residents, this article explores the attitudes towards the welfare state and whether or not there are significant differences between different social classes with regard to their approval of the welfare state. The findings were then compared with those for Sweden and the USA. The study shows that Hong Kong residents strongly approve of the welfare state. The strength of their support is similar to that in Sweden and is far stronger than in the USA. In Hong Kong, the influence of social class on attitudes towards the welfare state is negligible. In some cases, the privileged classes expressed greater approval for the welfare state than the underprivileged classes. This is in striking contrast to the experiences in Sweden and the USA where the underprivileged classes are more supportive of the welfare state than are the privileged classes.     

Convergence in the Social Welfare Systems in Europe: From Goal to Reality

The history of the social welfare systems in Europe in the postwar period appears as autonomous national processes because the construction of Europe which imposed common rules in many areas was equally consistent with the national development of social welfare systems, within each national culture. However, the idea of a common system of social protection has always remained linked to political and economic European construction which would create a more cohesive society. Many studies have analysed the trend of specific social policies and their convergence or divergence in Europe. Therefore, global convergence is often conceived as resulting from the domestic dynamics of each social risk. The paper focuses on one specific topic: the quantitative evaluation of convergence among the EU and OECD countries at the macroeconomic level. In the first part we explain the construction of social indicators which can assess the convergence or divergence of social expenditure in EU and OECD countries. In the second part we show many methodological problems and difficulties of interpretation of the social indicators. Then we see that the analysis of national trajectories of social expenditure and the link with economic development can enrich the analysis of convergence in social protection. Finally, the empirical analysis supports the idea of “adjustment” reforms rather than radical changes in a transitional period.