Poverty is a complex problem, which links with disadvantages and inequalities. Not only is poverty difficult to alleviate, but also difficult to gauge its change. The situation is particular worse in Hong Kong that the HKSAR Government does not set up an official poverty line. Most of the poverty studies or policies in Hong Kong are using income-based threshold to define poverty. Although lacking of income is one of the important dimensions of poverty, the measuring tools need to be enriched by including other dimensions like deprivation and social exclusion.
This Strategic Public Policy Research is funded by the Central Policy Unit of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Grant Reference: 4003-SPPR-11). Three research streams have been formed:
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Poverty and Social Disadvantages and Exclusion (PSDE)
The PSDE stream develops a specific measurement and calibration about poverty, deprivation and exclusion, which provides necessary measurement to gauge the impacts of poverty alleviation policies upon the social disadvantaged groups. The PSDE stream further develops the 2011 HKCSS Poverty Survey and the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey in Hong Kong, funded by the ESRC/RGC Joint Scheme (Grant Reference: RES-000 – 22-4400). It re-interviewed respondents to these previous surveys, thus providing longitudinal data on poverty, deprivation and exclusion. The PSDE survey covers the HK population with particular attention to the working poor, the elderly and the CSSA recipients. Multi-level data on poverty of individual, household, constituencies and district can be constructed and analyzed using the Geographical Information System.
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Poverty, Disadvantages and Children’s Well-being (PDCW)
Using the newly developed instruments, the PDCW stream measures deprivation, exclusion, well-being and health inequality of the children and young people to understand the dynamics of intergenerational poverty. The PDCW stream conducted extra interviews with children and young people aged 10 to 17.
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Poverty, Disadvantages and Health Inequality (PDHI)
The relationship between poverty, deprivation, location and health inequality are under researched in Hong Kong, the PDHI stream uses the new PSDE instruments to analysis multi-level data to scrutinize the relationships between health inequalities, poverty, social disadvantage and place.
Roles and responsibilities of the three research streams among inter-institutional collaboration
PSDE stream (HK-International team members)
Prof Wong Hung, Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Principal Investigator and PSDE stream leader)
Prof Chen Ji Kang, Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Prof Huang Bo, Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dr Lee Wai Ying Joanna, Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Prof Peter Saunders, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia
PDCW stream (HK-International team members)
Prof Lau Ka Wai Maggie, Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies, Lingnan University (PDCW stream leader)
Prof Mok Ka Ho Joshua, Department of Sociology of Social Policy, Lingnan University
Prof Jonathan Bradshaw, University of York, UK
Prof David Gordon, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Ms Christina Pantazis, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK
PDHI stream (HK-International team members)
Prof Chung Yat Nork Roger, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (PDHI stream leader)
Prof Wong Yeung Shan Samuel, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Prof Sian Griffiths, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Prof Wong Chi Sang Martin, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dr Lau Chun Hong Johnson, School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Prof David Gordon, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK