Hong Kong Poverty Links

Offi­cial Websites

Com­mis­sion on Poverty
The com­mis­sion has been estab­lished Decem­ber 1, 2012. It ded­i­cated to exam­ine con­di­tions and causes of poverty in Hong Kong, review exist­ing poli­cies and for­mu­late new poli­cies to improve liveli­hoods, and pro­vide a safety net to bet­ter help the dis­ad­van­taged and pre­vent social exclu­sion, etc. Some research papers (Chi­nese ver­sion only) are avail­able to download.

Com­mu­nity Care Fund
All details of the assis­tance pro­grammes cov­er­ing edu­ca­tion, home affairs, med­ical and wel­fare areas for tar­get ben­e­fi­ciary groups, includ­ing chil­dren, the elderly, the per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, patients, new arrivals and eth­nic minori­ties can be founded here.

Cen­tral Pol­icy Unit
The main func­tions of Cen­tral Pol­icy Unit are con­duct­ing pol­icy research, draft­ing CE’s annual Pol­icy Address, analysing and assess­ing com­mu­nity con­cerns and pub­lic opin­ions, etc. Var­i­ous aspects of research reports are avail­able to download.

Labour Depart­ment
The Labour Depart­ment “aims to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive employ­ment ser­vices, fos­ter har­mo­nious labour rela­tions, pro­mote and safe­guard employ­ees’ rights and ben­e­fits as well as work safety”.

Labour and Wel­fare Bureau
The Labour and Wel­fare Bureau “is com­mit­ted to imple­ment­ing var­i­ous impor­tant poli­cies for the ben­e­fits of the grass­roots and the under­priv­i­leged with a view to improv­ing their liveli­hood”. Press release and pub­li­ca­tion, con­sul­ta­tion paper, reports and oth­ers, Replies to LegCo and Panel Paper can be found.

Min­i­mum Wage Com­mis­sion
The Com­mis­sion is an inde­pen­dent statu­tory body estab­lished under Part 3 of the Min­i­mum Wage Ordi­nance. Press Release, pub­li­ca­tion and rel­e­vant mate­ri­als are avail­able to download.

Social Wel­fare Depart­ment
Core wel­fare ser­vices includ­ing social secu­rity, fam­ily and chil­dren wel­fare ser­vices, med­ical social ser­vices, ser­vices for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, ser­vices for elders, ser­vice for young peo­ple, etc. are pro­vided this department.

Non-​governmental Organization

The Boys’ & Girls’ Clubs Asso­ci­a­tion of Hong Kong [Chi­nese ver­sion only]
This orga­ni­za­tion mainly con­cern about the bal­anced devel­op­ment of chil­dren and youth. Some sur­veys about low-​income fam­i­lies have been published.

The Hong Kong Coun­cil of Social Ser­vice (HKCSS)
The HKCSS is now with around 400 Agency Mem­bers that pro­vide over 90% of the social ser­vices for those in need in Hong Kong. Free col­lec­tion of Researches and Sta­tis­tics [Chi­nese ver­sion only] con­cerns about social devel­op­ment and wel­fare ser­vices are available.

Oxfam Hong Kong
Oxfam is the main organ­i­sa­tion work­ing with peo­ple against Poverty. Through Oxfam pub­li­ca­tions, learn the sto­ries and sit­u­a­tion of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties near and far, and how Oxfam is help­ing them.

Soci­ety for Com­mu­nity Orga­ni­za­tion (SoCO)
The SoCO “firmly believes that every­one should be enti­tled to equal rights. Equal oppor­tu­nity for par­tic­i­pa­tion and fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of social resources is the foun­da­tion of human rights”.The SoCo pro­duces research reports [Chi­nese ver­sion only] in var­i­ous aspects includ­ing poverty, inequal­ity and social exclu­sion. It also run projects in the form of elec­tronic or mechan­i­cal, includ­ing pho­to­copy, record­ing to raise the pub­lic aware­ness on spe­cific issue.

Use­ful Programs:

RTHK TV series: Rich Mate Poor Mate II

This is a real­ity video show explor­ing the eco­nomic gap between the rich and the poor in Hong Kong. In this pro­gram, it put wealthy peo­ple in the shoes of the poor, with the film crew closely fol­low­ing them around the clock to see their expe­ri­ence of poverty

TVB Sun­day Report: Chil­dren liv­ing below the poverty line
This TV pro­gram demon­strates the liv­ing con­di­tion of two chil­dren from poor families.

UK Poverty Research Links

Townsend Cen­tre for Inter­na­tional Poverty Research
This web­site is ded­i­cated to mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary research on poverty in both the indus­tri­alised and devel­op­ing world. It is one of the World’s largest web­sites about poverty research and con­tains a wealth of material.

Poverty and Social Exclu­sion in the United King­dom
The PSE web­site is part of a major research project, Poverty and Social Exclu­sion in the UK (PSE: UK), funded by the Eco­nomic and Social Research Coun­cil. This web­site reports research into poverty and social exclu­sion, both in the UK and inter­na­tion­ally. It gives facts and fig­ures on a wide range of aspects of mate­r­ial and social depri­va­tion and looks at the impact poverty has on people’s lives, prospects and well-​being. It pro­vides evi­dence as to the under­ly­ing causes of poverty and the key events in people’s lives that can leave them vul­ner­a­ble to poverty. It tracks and assesses the impact of cur­rent poli­cies on the poor.

Brad­shaw, Pro­fes­sor Jonathan, Uni­ver­sity of York
This web­site pro­vides many free unpub­lished research papers on child poverty, includ­ing sev­eral papers on the Poverty and Social Exclu­sion Sur­vey of Britain.

Cen­tre for Analy­sis of Social Exclu­sion (CASE), Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics
CASE focuses on explo­ration of dif­fer­ent dimen­sions of social dis­ad­van­tage, par­tic­u­larly from lon­gi­tu­di­nal and neigh­bour­hood per­spec­tives, and exam­i­na­tion of the impact of pub­lic pol­icy. There is an excel­lent col­lec­tion of free pub­li­ca­tions on social exclu­sion and poverty.

Cen­tre for Research in Social Pol­icy (CRSP), Uni­ver­sity of Lough­bor­ough
CRSP is an inde­pen­dent research unit con­duct­ing high qual­ity work in the field of social pol­icy. See their Poverty and Social Exclu­sion page in particular.

Insti­tute for Fis­cal Stud­ies (IFS): Inequal­ity, poverty and well-​being
The dis­tri­b­u­tion of income, con­sump­tion and wealth con­tin­ues to be a cen­tral area of IFS research. Amongst the many aspects of their work in this area, they seek to chart, explain, and under­stand changes in inequal­ity in wages, earn­ings, incomes and con­sump­tion, in the UK and other coun­tries; they also seek to exam­ine the effec­tive­ness of a wide range of poli­cies aimed at reduc­ing poverty — includ­ing taxes and ben­e­fits, and other types of pol­icy inter­ven­tions — both in the UK and abroad.

Insti­tute for Social and Eco­nomic Research (ISER), Uni­ver­sity of Essex
ISER spe­cialises in the pro­duc­tion and analy­sis of lon­gi­tu­di­nal data – evi­dence which tracks changes in the lives of the same indi­vid­u­als over time. Research at ISER focuses pri­mar­ily on the life-​course of the indi­vid­ual and the chang­ing nature of soci­ety. Work to date has exam­ined the fam­ily; labour mar­kets, income and poverty, social dis­ad­van­tage and pub­lic pol­icy. ISER is home to the ESRC Research Cen­tre on Micro-​Social Change, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary cen­tre with a pres­ti­gious team of staff with a wide range of exper­tise in social sci­ence dis­ci­plines, includ­ing eco­nom­ics, soci­ol­ogy, demog­ra­phy, geog­ra­phy and statistics.

Joseph Rown­tree Foun­da­tion
Lots of free sum­maries of research on poverty, social exclu­sion and related issues (requires reg­is­tra­tion). Some of the key issues they work on are poverty and social exclu­sion and child poverty.

Min­i­mum Income Stan­dard for the UK
is an ongo­ing pro­gramme of research to define what level of income is needed to allow a min­i­mum accept­able stan­dard of liv­ing in the UK today.

New Pol­icy Insti­tute (NPI)
Think tank that pro­duces the annual report on Mon­i­tor­ing Poverty and Social Exclu­sion for the Joseph Rown­tree Foun­da­tion. See also their sta­tis­tics page.

Per­sonal Finance Research Cen­tre (PfRC), Uni­ver­sity of Bris­tol
Some excel­lent research work on finan­cial exclusion.

Poverty and Social Exclu­sion in North­ern Ire­land
Pro­vides data that allow North­ern Ire­land to be com­pared with the results of the British Poverty and Social Exclu­sion Survey.

Scot­tish Cen­tre for Research and Social Jus­tice (SCRSJ), Uni­ver­sity of Glas­gow
SCRSJ sought to inte­grate research and develop new research capac­ity in the field of social jus­tice. The SCRSJ was estab­lished in Jan­u­ary 2002 and aimed to:

• Reveal pat­terns of social injustice;

• Explore the processes involved in its emer­gence and persistence;

• Inform poli­cies which can alle­vi­ate inequal­i­ties and exclu­sion; and

• Con­tribute to wider debates on the nature of social justice.

Also visit their research page to find out more about com­pleted research projects.

Social Dis­ad­van­tage Research Group (SDRC), Uni­ver­sity of Oxford
These researchers were respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing the new Index of Mul­ti­ple Depri­va­tion for the Depart­ment of Trans­port, Local Gov­ern­ment and the Regions. The SDRC also pro­duced a sim­i­lar Index of Mul­ti­ple Depri­va­tion for Wales and a depri­va­tion Index for North­ern Ire­land. A list of their research projects can be found here.

Social Pol­icy Research Unit (SPRU), Uni­ver­sity of York
SPRU is part of the Depart­ment of Social Pol­icy and Social Work at the Uni­ver­sity of York and researches into social pol­icy, espe­cially health and social care, poverty, social secu­rity and social work. See research on Social Exclu­sion, Income and Poverty.

Wel­fare Reform on the Web
This is a free monthly digest by the British Library’s Social Pol­icy Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice (SPIS) of the vast range of mate­r­ial pub­lished on wel­fare issues in research reports, gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tion and pol­icy papers, aca­d­e­mic and trade jour­nals and qual­ity newspapers.

Com­par­a­tive Poverty Research Links

Com­par­a­tive Research Pro­gramme on Poverty (CROP)
CROP is a response from the aca­d­e­mic com­mu­nity to the prob­lem of poverty. It was estab­lished by the Inter­na­tional Social Sci­ence Coun­cil (ISSC). The CROP Sec­re­tariat is cur­rently based at the Cen­tre for Inter­na­tional Poverty Research, Uni­ver­sity of Bergen, Nor­way. Mem­bers of the Townsend Cen­tre for Inter­na­tional Poverty Research edited and helped CROP pro­duce The Inter­na­tional Glos­sary on Poverty as part of the Inter­na­tional Stud­ies in Poverty Research book series pub­lished by Zed Books. Down­load CROP’s Strate­gic Plan 2010 – 2011, Mobi­liz­ing Crit­i­cal Research for Pre­vent­ing and Erad­i­cat­ing Poverty as a PDF.

Gap­min­der
Gap­min­der, a Stockholm-​based non-​profit. Their extra­or­di­nary inter­ac­tive graphs help you visu­al­ize com­plex global trends like the dis­tri­b­u­tion of poverty, in dif­fer­ent regions of the world, over time. The raw sta­tis­tics would bore you to tears; the web graphs — dynamic, col­or­ful and clear — are utterly com­pelling. June Cohen, Ted­Blog, 2005

Worldmap­per
A com­pre­hen­sive web­site of global maps of social phe­nom­ena, such as poverty, inequal­ity and related sub­jects. This web­site con­tains 696 maps, with asso­ci­ated infor­ma­tion and PDF ‘poster’ file.