Transcript 投影片 1 - Central Policy Unit

Conference on
Social Inequality and Social Mobility
in Hong Kong
Poverty & social inclusion
of elderly in Hong Kong
Ernest Chui PhD, EdD(Bristol)
Associate Professor
Department of Social Work and Social dministration
The University of Hong Kong
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prosperous HK, but …
• Hong Kong is prosperous by world standard:
– per capita GDP (US$27,679) is 27th in the World,
4th in Asia (after Australia, Japan and Singapore,
as at June 2006) (C&SD 2007, IMF 2007)
• but there is considerable extent of poverty
conceived in the absolute and relative
senses
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Poverty in Hong Kong
• Gini Coefficient: a measure to capture
income discrepancy in working
population and thus reflecting
‘relative poverty’ in society has been
increasing over the years:
–
–
–
–
–
0.43 (1971)
0.45 (1981)
0.476 (1991)
0.525 (2001)
0.533
(2006)
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Social exclusion
conceptualized
• ‘the dynamic process of being shut out, fully
or partially, from any of the social,
economic, political or cultural systems
which determine the social integration of a
person in society. Social exclusion may,
therefore, be seen as the denial (or nonrealization) of the civil, political and social
rights of citizenship’ (Walker & Walker,
1997:8)
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Social exclusion
conceptualized
(2)
• ‘a multi-dimensional process, in which
various forms of exclusion are combined:
participation in decision making and political
processes, access to employment and
material resources, and integration into
common cultural processes. When
combined, they create acute forms of
exclusion that find a spatial manifestation in
particular neighborhoods’ (Madanipour et
al., 1998:22; cited in Byrne, 1999:2).
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Social exclusion
conceptualized
(3)
• Townsend Centre for International
Poverty Research, University of
Bristol: 4 aspects of exclusion
(Patsios, 2000):
1.
2.
3.
4.
exclusion
exclusion
exclusion
exclusion
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from
from
from
from
having adequate income
labour market
service consumption
social relations
The lack of examining social exclusion
in local studies on poverty
• most local researchers adopt either the ‘relative
poverty’ approach or ‘income proxy’ approach in
conceptualizing or measuring the magnitude of
poverty, e.g. …
• Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS)
Growing Seriousness in Poverty and Income
Disparity study (2004) used 50% median
income as benchmark:
– trend in overall poverty rate:
• 11.2% (1991)  18.0% (2002)
– trend in elderly poverty rate:
• 24.8% (1991)  32.6% (2002)
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Local poverty studies (2)
• City University of Hong Kong Study of Hong
Kong Poverty Line (Wong & Li 2002) used the
income proxy approach by defining the poverty
line with the inflection point of the Engel curve:
– set poverty line at $3,750 per person in 2002
– with reference to C&SD Household
Expenditure Survey (1999/2000), estimated
449,000 households with expense per head
<poverty line = 28% of the total households
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Ageing population
• proportion of elderly people in the
population aged 65+
– (1986) 7.6%
– (2006) 12.4% (853,000)
• aged (60+) 16.2%
• ‘elderly dependency ratio’ (C&SD 2007):
– 124 (1991)
– 168 (2006)
– 428 (2030)
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Exclusion from
adequate income
• C&SD 2004: 73% of 901,000 elderly who had stable
monthly income (from various sources, including
family members, work, etc.) had < half of median
monthly income of the general population ($10,000)
vs. median for the elderly population $3,000
• 2006 by-census: 57,500 ‘working elders’ (excluding
unpaid family workers) median income $6,500 vs.
$10,000 of overall working population and 41% of
working elders had monthly income <$6,000 (C&SD
2008)
• HKCSS & Oxfam (1996): 87.5 % of 16,000 singletons
living in ‘abject poverty’ were aged 60+
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Exclusion from
adequate income
(2)
• HKCSS Social Development Index study (2000) %
of elderly people living in low-income households:
22.4% (1981) 24.8% (1991) 25.9% (1996) 33.7%
(1998)
• Gini coefficient of households with a head of
household aged 65+ has increased: 0.508 (1996) 
0.515 (2001)  0.526 (2006) (HKCSS 2006)
• Chui, Ko & Chong 2005: 219,000 households with at
least one household member aged 60+ are ‘poor
elderly households’, total number of elderly persons
living in poverty ~289,600
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Exclusion from
employment
• job opportunities for elders due to
economic restructuring  high
unemployment amongst elderly people
• labor force participation for people aged
65+ has remained low: 9.8% (1996)  7%
(2006) (C&SD 2008)
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Lack of viable
retirement protection
• MPF only set up in 2000  cannot serve the present
cohort of elders who have already reached 60
• low contributory rate (5% of monthly income) +
short duration of contributions  low protection:
45% of the elderly population will live below
subsistence level in 2020 (Law 1997)  elderly are
worried about insufficient retirement protection
(Lingnan College 1997)
• 2001 C&SD Special Topic Report No27: 83.3% of the
elderly people had no form of pensions or retirement
protection
• 69.9% made no arrangements for future financial
needs
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Reliance on welfare
• since 1990s  in both absolute number and the
percentage of elderly population receiving CSSA
• 2007: 187,000 elderly persons living on CSSA
(SWD 2007) = 16.3% of the aged (60 or more)
population
• 71,500 elderly people aged 65+ (8.2%) relied
on means-tested normal Old Age Allowance as
major source of income
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Table 1: increase of elderly (60+) receiving social security assistance 1991-2006
1991
1996
2001
2006
Elderly receiving social security
48,000
98,800
139,300
187,000
Elderly population
711,000
891,000
1,013,000
1,099,000
6.8
11.1
13.8
17.0
Percentage
Source: Hong Kong Social Security Society (1998) Poverty Watch No.4, June 98; Hong
Kong Government Census & Statistics Dept Webpage; Social Welfare Department webpage
(various years)
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inadequate income
 reliance on public housing
• 2006: 407,000 elderly (aged 60+) living in
Public Rental Housing (PRH) = 20.4% of the
total 1,996,000 PRH tenants, or 38% of HK total
elderly population
• 58,800 singleton tenants = 46.5% of Hong
Kong’s 126,600 singleton elderly population
• 37,500 non-singleton elderly households
residing in PRH = 76,000 elderly people who
were largely elderly couples living on their own
• ~7,900 elderly applicants on waiting list
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Poor living condition
in private housing in old urban districts
• low elderly home ownership rate 17% (as at 2001;
C&SD 2004) vs. 53% of general public (Ramesh
2004)
• those who cannot afford to own private housing have
to rent rooms, bed-spaces or cocklofts in private
tenements in old urban areas  poor living
conditions
• Commission on Poverty (2006) 2.8% (~30,000) of
the elderly population lived in private temporary
housing or private shared units i.e. deprived of
independent & private living space
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Spatial exclusion resulted from urban
renewal and gentrification
• urban renewal of old urban districts  gentrification
 physical & social dislocation
• elders are physically, psychologically and socially
‘bound’ by the locality in which they live and they
derive their sense of familiarity and security from it
• if elders are deprived of environmental resources 
‘misfit’ and ‘strain’
• jeopardize their ‘perceived’ and ‘exerted’
independence  threaten their sense of security:
physical safety and ‘peace of mind’
• local studies have vividly portrayed these problems
e.g. Wanchai District Board 1999; HKYWCA 1998;
SoCO 2002)
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Poverty & deteriorating health
aggravating social exclusion
• 2006: average life expectancy 85.1 years
• poor general health (both physical and mental)
• ~106,700 elderly had various degrees of cognitive
impairment, especially serious amongst the 75+
group (C&SD 2001)
• high incidence of chronic illness: 72% have =/>1
chronic diseases (including 56% hypertension, 35%
rheumatism, 42% frequent medical consultations
(C&SD 2004)
• 64,000 elderly people had difficulty in activities of
daily living (C&SD 2004)
•   social participation  exclusion
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Normative exclusion and ageism
• in capitalistic, materialistic HK, people in
general have put slanted emphasis on
immediate economic rewards
–  elders are perceived to be ‘economically
unproductive’ (Phillipson 1982)
• Changing family structure & function
–  less respect & care to elders in family
–  less attend to the needs of the older generation
• gradual  ageism i.e. attitude that despises
older people
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Self disempowerment &
exclusion of elders
• a vicious cycle of self-denial and
disempowerment in elders  depression,
withdrawal or even self-destructive inclination
• e.g. depression particularly prevalent among
institutionalized elderly people: 38% (Hospital
Authority, 2005)
• high elderly suicide rate: (1981-95) 31.1 and
(2006) 28.2 per 100,000 (age 60+), 53.0 (age
75+) (Chi, Yip and Yu, 1998) vs. 12.1 for the
overall population (HKCSS 2007)
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recommendations
• The government may consider tapping upon the
substantial financial reserves to finance some
immediate measures  to provide the material base
for enabling the elders to enjoy social inclusion by
the community at large
• This can avoid resorting to a radical revision of the
low tax system and thus preserving a favorable
business environment
• These stop gap measures are expected to be
temporary as the future cohort of elders are better
prepared in having gradually maturing existing /
upcoming contributory schemes, and are having
growing awareness of better preparation for
retirement
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• Careful gentrification
• Promotion respect for the elderly
• Service to improve health condition
of elderly people
Acknowledgement:
The paper is based partly on Poverty and
social exclusion of elderly in Hong Kong
(2007) (HKU7407/06H) funded by the
Research Grant Council of Hong Kong and on
a consultancy project. I acknowledge with
thanks the client's permission to cite from
the report of the consultancy study
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