关于香港贫困若干问题的探讨

论述香港贫困问题中关于贫困标准、贫困状况与贫困原因等几个有争议的问题,提出如下观点：香港可设立基本与非基本两个贫困线并分别采取不同的救助方式,从而在保障底线公平的基础上进行柔性调节;应当把绝对指标和相对指标结合起来,分别反映香港绝对贫困和相对贫困的不同状况;导致香港贫困问题的根本原因是结构性的,香港的贫困问题属于丰裕社会中的结构性贫困,与落后国家或地区的发展性贫困有根本区别。     

Beyond Homonegativity: Understanding Hong Kong People’s Attitudes About Social Acceptance of Gay/Lesbian People,Sexual Orientation Discrimination Protection,and Same-Sex Marriage

This study examined attitudes about social acceptance, discrimination protection, and marriage equality for gay/lesbian people with a representative sample of 1,008 Hong Kong Chinese adults via a telephone survey. Despite majority endorsement of homosexuality (52.29% positive vs. 34.12% negative) and discrimination protection (50.72% favorable vs. 14.64% opposed), attitudes toward same-sex marriage diverged (32.79% favorable vs. 39.41% opposed). There was a sharp distinction in accepting gay/lesbian people as co-workers (83.57%) and friends (76.92%) versus relatives (40.19%). Having more homosexual/bisexual friends or co-workers contributed to greater endorsement of social acceptance and discrimination protection but not same-sex marriage. Age, religion, political orientation, and homonegativity consistently predicted attitudes toward social acceptance, discrimination protection, and same-sex marriage, whereas gender-role beliefs, conformity to norms, and cultural orientations had varying impacts. This article informs theory and advocacy by disentangling homonegativity from attitudes about gay/lesbian issues and highlighting the centrality of family-kinship and relative-outsider delineation in Chinese societies.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Hong Kong Welfare Programmes in Reducing Child Poverty

This paper examines the effectiveness and efficiency of welfare programmes that are relevant to child poverty reduction in Hong Kong. We employ data from a cross‐sectional survey of a representative sample of families, conducted in 2015 through face‐to‐face interviews. Our results indicate that all four welfare programmes were inadequate in alleviating child poverty. This was either due to the deep poverty gap to be filled or high rates of exclusion error. Most programmes are also inefficient because of inclusion error. We conclude by suggesting some policy implications for the welfare programmes.     

Happiness of Hong Kong youth from 2000 to 2014: empirical evidence on the differential impact of socioeconomic conditions on youth versus other age groups

This paper aims to explain why Hong Kong youth have become unhappier than older people in recent years. We test in this connection six hypotheses, using random effects ordinal logistic regressions with a combined macro-micro dataset from official statistics and a longitudinal opinion survey project from 2000 to 2014. The results show that the decline in the happiness level in recent years is more significant for Hong Kong youth than for older people. We also find evidence of age heterogeneity in the impacts of both macroeconomic conditions and the housing price on happiness. GDP per capita has a weaker positive effect on youth’s happiness than it does on older people. The positive correlation between housing price and happiness is valid for older people only. Rapid economic growth and the rise in the price of housing have made older people happier than youth since the early 2010s.     

The struggle for hegemony: the emergence of a counter-public sphere in post-1997 Hong Kong

The present study examines the struggle for hegemony in the public sphere by two different systems, following Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. It has been postulated that the new media, particularly social media, has become an important public sphere for the citizens of Hong Kong to engage in an anti-hegemonic struggle against China’s discursive encroachment into Hong Kong since 1997. Given that the public platform provided by legacy media has been bought out or coopted by China, new media has begun to serve as a subaltern public sphere to enable resisting the hegemony imposed by China. This was analyzed through a survey conducted as part of this study, which showed that people who are young, read the Apple Daily, have high expectations of local autonomy, and a high regard for press freedom are prone to using social media to obtain their social and political information. This article analyzes the implications of the emergence of a counter-China hegemonic public sphere.     

Health Status and Risk Behaviors of Sexual Minorities Among Chinese Adolescents: A School-Based Survey

This study aimed to examine the association between sexual orientation and health disparities among a stratified random sample of 3776 secondary students in Hong Kong. The prevalence of homosexuality and bisexuality were 1.5% and 2.6% in boys and 1.8% and 3.7% in girls, respectively. A total of 10.7% of boys and 8.8% of girls were unsure of their sexual orientation. Homosexual and bisexual boys reported poorer physical and mental health than their heterosexual peers. Homosexual and bisexual boys were more likely to engage in smoking, frequent drinking, and vaginal sex and be subjected to sexually transmitted disease and sexual victimization. However, lesbian and bisexual girls were less likely to engage in risky health behaviors except for smoking and being subjected to sexual victimization. There is a gender-specific problem that may warrant prevention and intervention programs to address the unique health issues facing homosexual and bisexual adolescents in Hong Kong.     

Revisiting social-mediated crisis communication model: The Lancôme regenerative crisis after the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement

The widespread use of social media has stimulated the number of crises on a global scale and given rise to regenerative crises which involve multiple crisis stages and publics. Using the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication model and the regenerative crisis model, this study explores a real-life organizational crisis related to Lancôme Hong Kong, which was driven by the socio-political environment after the Umbrella Movement. It aims to examine the engagement strategies by different publics, and also the influence of information forms and sources on the trends of emotion among social media publics. Results also provided an empirical evaluation of the regenerative crisis model driven by a socio-political environment. An online content analysis of selected 10% sample with an online data acquisition and analysis tool (3902 Facebook posts and comments, 1178 forum posts and comments, and 244 online news articles) revealed the interlocking connection among the involved publics along with the social-mediated regenerative crisis life cycle. Followers’ emotional responses were not only attached to Lancôme, but also to third parties as information sources. Four subcategories of influential social media creators were identified. Refinement on the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication model and practical implications are suggested.     

Poverty affects access to regular source of primary care among the general population in Hong Kong

A territory‐wide two‐stage stratified random sample of 2,282 community‐dwelling Hong Kong adults were surveyed between 2014 and 2015 to investigate the association between poverty and regular source of primary care utilization. Poverty was operationalized by income‐poverty and deprivation. About 94% of our sample reported having regular source of primary care (Western and/or Chinese medical practitioner) and about 69% among them were in private sector. Multivariable logistic regression showed that people who were income‐poor and deprived were less likely to have regular source of primary care (income‐poor: OR = 0.523, p = .027; deprived: OR = 0.488, p = .007) and visit private primary care doctors (income‐poor: OR = 0.445, deprived: OR = 0.222, both p < .0001). Those who had chronic diseases were more likely to have regular source of primary care (multimorbid: OR = 10.709, p < .0001), but less likely to access care in the private sector (one chronic disease: OR = 0.690, p = .019; multimorbid: OR = 0.374, p < .0001) than those without. Further, being older and less skilled were significantly associated with less likelihood of visiting a private doctor. Path analysis showed that the number of chronic diseases had significant indirect effect on having regular source of primary care with being income‐poor and deprived as the mediators (β = ?.0183, p = .0016). Therefore, despite a public health‐care system that aims to deny no one from adequate health care for lack of means, regular source of primary care in Hong Kong is found to be pro‐rich. Future policies should tackle the problem of health‐care inequalities to meet the needs of the underprivileged.     

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.     

短篇题材的重写:萧红居港期间的小说创作

萧红居港期间创作了两部长篇代表作《呼兰河传》和《马伯乐》,三个短篇《后花园》、《小城三月》、《北中国》和一个口述小说《红玻璃的故事》,可说是萧红小说创作的高峰期。值得注意的是,这两部长篇小说都涉及重写短篇题材。这一独特现象为人们考察萧红居港期间的创作自觉意识及其民族性思考提供了解读的空间。萧红在《呼兰河传》里,对短篇小说《家族以外的人》、《后花园》中的有二伯和磨倌等形象进行了再造与重写。在小说重构过程中,萧红游走于情感诗意与理性概括之间,叙述视角、立场和表现主题亦发生相应变化,从中可以看出萧红居港时期的小说创作题旨及其内在规律,以及她如何执着于作家姿态的独立性,而成就了她在居港期间小说创作的独特性。