Hong Kong: workfare in the world's freest economy

Chan CK. Hong Kong: workfare in the world's freest economy Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 22–32 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Workfare was introduced in many countries to suppress welfare dependency and reduce social security expenditures. However, workfare was launched in Hong Kong when there was only a relatively small social security budget and its citizens still strongly adhered to the ideologies of self‐reliance. It was found that workfare has performed several functions in Hong Kong. First, by forcing unemployed claimants to give up benefits, Hong Kong has been able to save on social security expenditures. Second, workfare has combined with Hong Kong's semi‐democratic polity so that extremely stigmatising welfare measures have been implemented. Third, it has pushed poor citizens into the labour market without having any protection over wages and working hours. Thus, the combination of workfare and a semi‐democratic polity has successfully suppressed Hong Kong's welfare demands and strengthened its self‐help spirit. As a result, Hong Kong's minimal social security scheme and its low tax policy have been maintained.     

Receive or give? Contemporary views among middle-aged and older Chinese adults on filial piety and well-being in Hong Kong

This qualitative study aimed to examine the contemporary interpretation of filial piety by middle-aged and older Chinese adults in Hong Kong, and to explore its relationship with well-being in later life through focus groups. Data analysis revealed that all participants subscribed to the traditional value of filial piety, but had willingly reduced their filial expectations of their younger generation. Importantly, well-being in later life was found to be affected by both the younger generation’s filial commitments and older parents’ continued support of their younger generation so that the latter could lead a better life.     

From Transitional to Permanent Uncertainty: Employability of Middle‐aged Workers in Hong Kong

Since the 1990s, Hong Kong has experienced increasing economic uncertainty. Middle‐aged workers, who often have little formal education and limited skills, have been the first casualties of economic restructuring. Initially, their unemployment was considered transitional. Limited government‐sponsored retraining programs were expected to improve their employability. Subsequent economic crises, however, have undercut the hopes of both workers and policy‐makers. Despite improvements in the job market since the mid‐2000s, the belief that unemployment was transitional has been replaced by a permanent state of uncertainty and consequent anxiety. Flexibility is considered the key to sustaining economic growth, and would relieve the insecurity and anxiety associated with unemployment. Policies have been modified, but they are still based on a narrowly defined concept of individual employability, which consolidates the sense of uncertainty. To address the factors contributing to the perception of permanent uncertainty among middle‐aged workers, we advocate a pragmatic approach that takes reference from the notion of flexicurity to mitigate this sense of uncertainty.     

Changing Needs and Changing Service Delivery for Long-Term Care in Hong Kong

Summary

Both the need for and delivery of long-term care in Hong Kong are shaped by the interaction of the traditional and modern. Rapid social change is affecting traditional family structures and roles in care of the elderly, resulting in increased demand for formal care, which to date has been provided mainly by way of residential care. This growth of demand will escalate with rapid population aging in coming decades. In response to this burgeoning demand, current planning is seeking to reshape the established service system and tackle problems in service delivery in ways that will address the bias towards residential care and improve quality of care.     

DOUBLE NEGATIONS: HONG KONG CULTURAL IDENTITY IN HOLLYWOOD'S TRANSNATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS

This article attempts to develop a critical understanding of the reconstitution of Hong Kong identity in Hollywood productions involving Hong Kong film talents. It argues that the ‘local’ in the city's historical context of the nineties no longer refers to any entity pertaining to a particular locality and culture but is always already determined by the framework of the transnational, which structures the perception of its local social reality. In particular, the paper suggests that the remaking of Hong Kong cultural identity in Hollywood films could be grasped in terms of the notion of a double negation. While the formation of such an identity is based on a negation of Chineseness, Hong Kong's transnational crossing to Hollywood initiates another negation that negates the very symbolic realm common to Chineseness. Jackie Chan's Hollywood blockbuster, Rush Hour, is used to illuminate the ways in which Hong Kong film stars and directors working for the global entertainment syndicate re-appropriate their agency in the production of a transnational narrative of their identity.     

The debate over the joint parental responsibility model in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's Law Reform Commission recommended the joint parental responsibility model into Hong Kong's family law in 2005. A public consultation on whether to implement the model by legislative means was launched in late 2011. An Internet search and secondary analysis of public opinion about the model and its legislation was conducted. It was found that stakeholders held diverse opinions on the legislation of the model. The greatest concern is over the inadequate support to facilitate a workable relationship between separated/divorced parents, and the methods used in protecting victims of domestic violence from ongoing abuse due to the continuous contact with the abusive parent necessitated by the model. Non-resident parents are invisible in the debate. Their absence in the debate has made the consultation a partial and incomplete one, though it saves the discussion from a gender competition between fathers' rights and mothers' rights. Taking a historical and comparative perspective, this paper makes a comprehensive review of the debate in Hong Kong, with reference to the debate at an international level. Implications to the social work profession and social work practice are discussed.     

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 Critical Review of Family Caregiving of Mental Health Consumers in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This paper is a critical review on the family caregiving of mental health consumers in Hong Kong. The writer has a brief review on related studies of family caregiving of mental health consumers. In comparing with those in the U.K. and the U.S.A., family caregivers of mental health consumers in Hong Kong are lonely, stigmatized and unsupported by mental health services and members in the community.     

Factors Associated with Adolescents’ Disclosure of Sexual Abuse Experiences in Hong Kong

This research project is the first study conducted in Hong Kong using adolescent subjects to explore predictors of child sexual abuse disclosure. Eight-hundred male and female adolescents aged 13 to 16 years were recruited from the community while another 30 adolescents joined the study from a clinical setting. One hundred and seventy-seven adolescents acknowledged having a child sexual abuse experience. Results showed that the severity of sexual abuse activities and parent attachment were associated with disclosure in the clinical setting, while abuser’s gender and the adolescents’ disclosure tendency were associated with disclosure among participants in the community setting. Among the 104 participants who had disclosed their childhood sexual abuse, 70% of them had disclosed it within one month and 63% of them had disclosed to 2 to 5 people. The majority of the disclosers (81%) shared their child sexual abuse experience(s) with their friends. Participants from the clinical setting tended to reveal the experience more to adults than those from the community. The study suggested that when choosing a potential confidant, adolescents paid more attention to confidant characteristics than to anticipated confidant responses to their disclosure. Limitations and practical implications for increasing child sexual abuse disclosure rates are discussed.     

Food,Memories, and Identities in Hong Kong

This article adopts a processual and relational approach to study food remembrance and investigates how different ways of appropriating food reveal the politics of identities in Hong Kong. It examines how food memories reveal relationships between the past and the present, reflect epochal transformation, and mark changing identities of various groups of people through new ways of appropriations. It takes the case study of pancai, a special banquet food for the villagers in the New Territories of Hong Kong, to examine the relationships between food and identities. This article investigates how pancai is remembered, popularized, and reinvented with different variations and embodies shifting meanings for the New Territories inhabitants as well as other Hong Kong people in changing socioeconomic and political environments. Pancai has been imbued with multiple layers of significance, involving linkages between local and national, emigration and Chineseness, urbanization and rural heritage, as well as decolonization and identity politics. As identities are by nature negotiable, situational, and fluidic, pancai's multiple layers of meanings correspond to different levels of identities—identities of the New Territories inhabitants, the rest of the Hong Kong people, and the mainland Chinese.