Social Welfare In Hong Kong

1367 Words6 Pages
This essay is about the development of social welfare in Hong Kong before the change in sovereignty in 1997, which is divided into four stages. The main factors affecting the development of social welfare in Hong Kong before 1997 will then be discussed. There are four phases in the history of social policy in Hong Kong before 1997. They are Residual social policy, Partial social policy, The Big Bang Social Policy, and The Incremental Social policy Phase 1 is Residual Social policy, which was between 1842 to 1952. At first, education was provided by Chinese teachers and some Christian churches. In 1842, the government gave a grant of land to Morrison Education Society, which was a missionary body and later gave grants to Chinese schools in…show more content…
The Second Phase is Partial social policy, which was from 1953 to 1970. There began to be more urgent social needs and demand of social services in the 1950s. In 1948, social welfare office under the Secretary of Chinese Affairs was set up, which was turned into a department in 1958. In 1965, the first White Paper on Social Welfare was published and the government placed responsibility on the family and voluntary sector. On Christmas Eve in 1953, there was a huge fire in Shek Kip Mei which left 50k citizens homeless. The government then built estates for the needy in 1961, but left around 700k citizens poorly housed. There are four reasons to why the government was willing to deal with the housing problems. First, they hope to reduce cost for looking after the needy and homeless. Second is to reduce risks of fire accidents like that in Shek Kip Mei. Third reason is to recover the burnt lands. And the final one is to provide labor supply near major industrial…show more content…
Not only did this plan allow the government to get rid of the squatters area but it also helped solve the problem of overcrowding. A social security system was established and it provided those with financial difficulties with financial aid. The fourth phase was the Incremental Social policy, which happened from 1978 to 1997. At that time, there were no decrease in social services, but no increase either. The ten-year housing plan extended another 5 years due to a lot of Chinese refugees and also the original plan was too ambitious. According to Dror, for incrementalism to work, there are three essentials: First, the present policies should have satisfactory results and need little changes. Second, the problems “solved” by the policies must continue to exist. Third, the ways to deal with the problems are able to be continued. Eventually, the government allowed more public consultation. In 1984, the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed. The Handover in 1997 caused “confidence crisis”. This prompted a lot of Hong Kong people to immigrate to other
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