The excluding effects of inclusive measures - the case study of welfare to work measures in Hong Kong

This paper studies the excluding effects of the pro-market welfare-to-work programmes adopted by the Hong Kong Government. It focuses on the New Dawn Project which is designed to help single parents and child carers on the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA) to cope with social exclusion. In this paper we argue that the Hong Kong Government under-estimates the significance of the defects of the labour market as the main cause of the social exclusion faced by many single parents and child carers. Hence, instead of launching structural reforms to deal with the defects of the labour market, it focuses on increasing the ability and willingness of the single parents and child carers on the CSSA to sell their labour in the labour market through the New Dawn Project. As a result, this project has two negative effects on its targets. Firstly, it wrongly blames the single parents and child carers for the unemployment faced by them. Secondly, the project further excludes those who find it difficult to meet the training requirements.published_or_final_versio

Health Experiences of Chinese People in the UK

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Socialism and social dimension of work - employment policies on disabled groups in China

This paper is about employment policies on disabled people in China. It argues that the Chinese government has constantly emphasised the social dimension of work. Employment has therefore been regarded as an important means for disabled people to integrate into the society and to contribute to public interests. Various measures have been introduced in legislation and in policies on education and employment to enhance job opportunities for disabled people in the last two decades. However, the effectiveness of these measures is limited. In face of the keen competition in the expansion of the private market, many enterprises and welfare services do not have sufficient capacity or enthusiasm to promote employment for disabled groups. The paper argues it is important for the government to provide more support and incentives to enterprises, services, disabled people and their family in order to realise the social dimension of work among the disabled groups

The sensitivity of United Kingdom health-care services to the diverse needs of Chinese-origin older people

This paper is a contribution to the debate on how to make health-care services in the United Kingdom more responsive to the needs of older people who are members of recent immigrant groups. The focus is on the Chinese-origin elders, and the objective is to demonstrate their diverse migrant histories, cultural backgrounds and attitudes to both traditional and Western health-care practices. The underlying argument is that if National Health Service staff had a better understanding of the diversity of Chinese older people, this would make an important contribution to making the service more sensitive to their needs. To develop this argument, this paper carries out three main analytical tasks. The first is to discuss the range of strategies adopted by Chinese people in general and Chinese older people in particular to improve their health. The second is to study Chinese people's heritage of exploring different methods to organise health in response to foreign culture. The third considers the ways in which the sensitivity of British health-care services to the needs of ethnic-minority groups can be improved, with a focus on the culturagram instrument and procedure. Three contrasting examples are presented. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Social quality and the social harmony campaign in Hong Kong

This paper is a response to the increasing internationalization of the concept of social quality. It is intended to examine whether research projects on social quality reduce or increase the ethnocentric bias in the study of social welfare. To fulfill this objective, it carries out two analytical tasks. The first is to discuss the views of Walker and Wong (2004) on the ethnocentric bias in the study of social welfare. Walker and Wong (2004) argue that overemphasizing the differences between how social welfare is organized and assessed in Western countries and that in non-Western countries causes the bias of excluding the latter in comparative analyses. Hence to deal with this bias, it is necessary to pay attention to the similarities between the social welfare development in western countries and that in nonwestern countries. Secondly, to provide evidence to Walker and Wong’s argument, this paper discusses the relevancy of the social harmony campaign in Hong Kong to research projects on social quality.link_to_OA_fulltex