1. Poverty in a Rich Soci­ety: The Case of Hong Kong (Edited by Mag­gie K. W. LAU and David GOR­DON)

Abstract: Hong Kong has remained a wealthy finan­cial hub but its income inequal­ity is greater than that in any devel­oped econ­omy. The grow­ing unequal income dis­tri­b­u­tion and poverty in Hong Kong have aroused pub­lic con­cern. This book brings together some of Hong Kong’s and the UK’s lead­ing experts to exam­ine poverty in Hong Kong from three per­spec­tives: 1, pub­lic under­stand­ing of poverty, and the extent of poverty and social exclu­sion in Hong Kong soci­ety, 2, poverty and health as well as child poverty and edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties in Hong Kong, and 3, effec­tive­ness of poverty alle­vi­a­tion mea­sures in Hong Kong. On this basis, this book timely advances the the­ory and prac­tice of poverty and social exclu­sion mea­sure­ment, and will inspire com­par­a­tive research and pol­icy analy­ses for bet­ter pol­icy ini­tia­tives. This col­lec­tion was inspired by the work­shop formed one key research out­put of the Poverty and Social Exclu­sion in Hong Kong (PSEHK) project funded by the Research Grants Coun­cil and the UK Eco­nomic and Social Research Coun­cil (http://​www​.poverty​.hk/).

2. Spe­cial Issue — Poverty in a Rich Soci­ety: The Case of Hong Kong (China Review, Vol. 15, No.2, Fall 2015)

Intro­duc­tion: Poverty in a Rich Soci­ety — The Case of Hong Kong

Mag­gie Lau (Guest Edi­tor)

My Expe­ri­ence Research­ing Poverty over the Past 35 Years

Nel­son W. S. Chow

Poverty in Hong Kong

Mag­gie Lau, Christina Pan­tazis, David Gor­don, Lea Lai and Eileen Sut­ton

Set­ting the Poverty Line: Pol­icy Impli­ca­tions for Squar­ing the Wel­fare Cir­cle in Hong Kong

Flo­rence Meng-​soi Fong and Chack-​kie Wong

Health Inequal­ity in Hong Kong

Roger Y. Chung and Samuel Y. S. Wong

Enhanc­ing Global Com­pet­i­tive­ness and Human Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment: Does Edu­ca­tion Help Reduce Inequal­ity and Poverty in Hong Kong?

Ka Ho Mok

Is Poverty Erad­i­ca­tion Impos­si­ble? A Cri­tique on the Mis­con­cep­tions of the Hong Kong Gov­ern­ment

Hung Wong

3. Includ­ing the Views of the Pub­lic in a Sur­vey of Poverty and Social Exclu­sion in Hong Kong: Find­ings from Focus Group Research

Abstract: There has been grow­ing research inter­est into poverty and social exclu­sion in Hong Kong over the past 30 years. How­ever, the devel­op­ment of sur­veys in this field con­tin­ues to be pri­mar­ily ‘top-​down’ or ‘expert-​led’. ‘Bottom-​up’ or ‘lay’ per­spec­tives, util­is­ing the views of ordi­nary mem­bers of the pub­lic, are rarely incor­po­rated. This arti­cle dis­cusses the use of con­sen­sual focus group meth­ods to advance the the­ory and prac­tice of poverty and social exclu­sion mea­sure­ment in Hong Kong. By adapt­ing the UK Poverty and Social Exclu­sion Study 2012 to the Hong Kong con­text, the arti­cle reports on pub­lic per­cep­tions of the neces­si­ties of life and under­stand­ing of social exclu­sion. The study found a strong social con­sen­sus about what items and activ­i­ties con­sti­tute an accept­able stan­dard of liv­ing in Hong Kong. Fur­ther­more, whilst social exclu­sion was an unfa­mil­iar con­cept, par­tic­i­pants were able iden­tify and explain expe­ri­ences such as discim­i­na­tion (affect­ing new arrivals), geo­graph­i­cal iso­la­tion, a cul­ture of long-​working hours and poor access to health ser­vices as key elements.