Deprivation and Poverty in Hong Kong

Despite high and rising real incomes, the poverty rate in Hong Kong remains a cause of community concern. The government has been reluctant to set a poverty line, although the recently (re‐)established Commission on Poverty has recommended that a poverty line for Hong Kong is developed. Against this background, this article reports results derived from a new deprivation study designed to shed new light on the living standards of the poorest in the community. Reflecting international studies, deprivation is identified as existing when people do not have and cannot afford items regarded by a majority in the community as being essential for all. A list of 35 basic needs items is identified as meeting this definition, the results indicating that around 30 per cent are deprived of at least two items, over 18 per cent are deprived of at least four items and 10 per cent are deprived of at least eight items. Deprivation rates are particularly high among items that meet basic health needs. A mean deprivation score index (MDIS) is then used to compare the degree of deprivation experienced by different groups, and indicates that deprivation is most pronounced amongst those receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), people affected by a disability and recent migrants. The overlap between deprivation and income poverty is also relatively low, which suggests both measures have a role to play in identifying who is most vulnerable and guiding where policy change is most urgently needed.     

Challenges of social workers' involvement in the recovery of the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake in China

This article explores the challenges of social workers' involvement in recovery work of the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake (12 May 2008). Six social workers working in three social work stations in Sichuan, China, were asked to report the challenges they faced in working with disaster survivors. Findings reveal that the social workers faced many challenges. These include lack of government support, low professional status of social work, rapid changes in the social environment in disaster‐affected areas, lack of supervision, lack of cooperation and coordination among social service agencies, and lack of experience and knowledge in working with disaster survivors. The practical, educational and policy implications of the findings are addressed.     

Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources of Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reports the results of a telephone survey (n = 1,015 respondents) that aims to identify the perceived general family functioning and family resources of Hong Kong Chinese families and their linkage to each other in a rapidly transforming society. The perceived general family functioning of the respondents was average, and the five types of family resources—time, income, human capital, psychological capital, and social capital—of the respondents ranged from average to good. The following family resource domains, in descending order, have accounted for significant variance in perceived general family functioning: income, time spent with family, stress coping efficacy, religion, and satisfaction with the living environment. Our findings provide empirical support for policy formulation and social work practice.     

A Cultural-Historical Study of How Children from Hong Kong Immigrant Families Develop a Learning Motive within Everyday Family Practices in Australia

This article draws on a cultural-historical theorization of child development alongside the Chinese concept of learning in order to study children's development in the Hong Kong Australian community. In particular, it aims to understand in detail how a 9-year-old child develops a learning motive under highly structured family practices. The data analysed were selected from a larger set of data involving 80 hr of video observations generated from the recording of everyday practices in three Hong Kong immigrant families. The findings indicate that encouragement plays an important role in bridging the gap between parental demands and the child's wishes, which assists the child to appropriate family values, thus facilitating the development of a learning motive and learning itself.     

Comorbid mood and adjustment disorders among pathological gamblers seeking treatment in Hong Kong

Research findings on comorbidity and pathological gambling are non–existent in Chinese communities. The objectives of this study were to: (a) determine the prevalence of comorbid mood and adjustment disorders among pathological gamblers seeking treatment in Hong Kong; (b) compare demographic profiles and clinical features in pathological gamblers with and without comorbid mood and adjustment disorders; and (c) explore the association and temporal relationship between pathological gambling and comorbid mood and adjustment disorders. Assessment instruments included demographic data, BSI, SCID-I, ASI and LIFE-RIFT. Results showed that about two-thirds (63.7%; n = 128) of 201 participants reported lifetime comorbid psychiatric disorders. Most common comorbid disorders were mood disorders (29.4%; n = 59) and adjustment disorders (20.9%; n = 42). Pathological gamblers with comorbid mood or adjustment disorders showed more severe levels of psychopathology, impairment in psychosocial functioning and gambling problems. This study is important because it is the first scientific comorbidity study among pathological gamblers in a Chinese context.     

秘鲁城市女性劳动参与的微观研究

本文利用2001年秘鲁国家统计和信息局第三期家庭抽样调查数据,运用Logistic回归,分析了在秘鲁城市中,人口、经济和教育变量是如何影响女性劳动参与的.并且将首都利马和利马以外的其他地区加以区分来进行分析。研究结果表明在秘鲁城市范围内.女性劳动参与随着女性生命周期的变化出现了很明确的模式;生育、婚姻状况、与家长的关系、接受高等教育(指硕士及以上和培训)明显地影响女性劳动参与。在首都利马和其他地区的大部分影响方向很类似。但是在首都利马的影响程度要大一些。     

The potential of child care tax credits to reduce poverty and welfare recipiency

As more and more mothers of young children enter the work force, interest in government financing of child care grows. The chief government subsidy for child care is the child care credit in the federal Internal Revenue Code. This is a nonrefundable credit and therefore provides benefits only to those with incomes high enough to require them to pay income tax. Yet of the $ 5.5 billion spent by the federal government on child care in 1986, this program accounted for $ 3.5 billion.This paper simulates the effects of expanding the child care tax credit by (1) doubling the reimbursement rates of the current credit; (2) making the credit refundable; and (3) both making the credit refundable and increasing its value for all families with income below $ 32,000.Results suggest that these changes will have modest effects on the income and earnings of mothers, and on the poverty gap and welfare recipiency. Costs, however, differ substantially. Doubling the value of the credit is far more expensive than either making the credit refundable or making it both refundable and more generous at the bottom of the income distribution. Making the credit refundable may cost taxpayers very little by leading to increases in hours worked and concomitant reductions in welfare payments.     

The Quality of Life of Hong Kong’s Poor Households in the 1990s: Levels of Expenditure, Income Security and Poverty

This paper examines the changes in the quality of life of poor households in Hong Kong in the late 1990s by analyzing their levels of expenditure, income security and poverty before and after 1997. Though there have been significant increases in the levels of expenditure among CSSA recipients, the expenditure among these poorest households in Hong Kong is still below that of non-CSSA recipients. Increasing poverty in Hong Kong is the result of increasing housing costs borne by these low expenditure households, who have to squeeze their expenditure on food and other items in order to meet the rising cost of housing. De-industrialisation and mass unemployment have given capital and the state unchecked authority to restructure the economy and to deregulate the labour market. Many low-income households have been hit hard as they faced redundancy, unemployment and wage-cuts after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. What jobs have been created are mostly part-time, temporary and contract jobs, and there has thus been an erosion in both job and income security. The quality of life of poor households is devastating not only in the sense that their living standards are low, but also that they are socially excluded from the mainstream of society.     

Integrations,identity and conflicts: A cross-border perspective on residential relocation of Hong Kong citizens to Mainland China

This paper aims to test if traditional literature on both internal residential mobility and international migration hold up in explaining the driving forces behind the home-moving behaviours of Hong Kong residents to the Chinese Mainland, under a mixture of economic integrations, past connections along with present structural and identity differences. The multi-dimensionality of this behaviour, in comparison to other forms of residential movements in the literature, is shown as there is no single attribute, albeit all necessary conditions, sufficient enough to encourage such movement on its own. Instead, the cross-border residence is primarily a middle-class, middle-aged phenomenon, due to one’s past connections with Mainland China throughout his/her life course and the possession of financial resources insufficient to afford larger living space in Hong Kong yet enough to benefit from the remarkable living cost advantages on the other side of the border. It provides some directions for studying similar forms of residential mobility in the era of globalization when the functions of national borders have become more obscure than before. Implications from this residential behaviour are then discussed.     

Dynamic selection of dispatching rules for job shop scheduling

Although the academic contribution to job shop scheduling is abundant, its impact on practice has been minimal. The most preferred approach to job shop scheduling in the industry is dispatching rules. A major criticism against dispatching rules is that there is no single universal rule. The effective choice of dispatching rules depends on the scheduling criterion and existing job shop conditions. In this paper, the authors have proposed a scheduling method based on the analytic hierarchy process, that dynamically selects the most appropriate dispatching rule from several candidate rules. The selection is based on the existing job shop conditions. This method is applied to two formal job shop problems, and the results for single dispatching rules are inferior to the method proposed in this paper.