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:

  1. 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-​00022-​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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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