Revisiting the role of the government in poverty alleviation in Hong Kong : policy attention, choice and change

Abstract

Hong Kong has maintained a residual welfare model since the colonial era. In recent years, there have been significant changes in how the government positions itself in the fight against poverty. Changes at the ideological, institutional and strategic levels are observed. For instance, there has been a greater inclination towards income redistribution, capacity building of the poor, transfer in cash and collaboration with the civil society. This dissertation seeks to understand how the issue of poverty had captured the attention of policymakers and how the policy choices were shaped, which ultimately led to the policy change. Through content analysis of official documents and newspapers as well as case studies, it is argued that the changing problem definitions of poverty, the exploitation of multiple institutional venues by policymakers and advocates to put forward such definitions, and the change in social construction of the poor from undeserving to deserving have influenced policy attention and the choice of policy tools in poverty alleviation in Hong Kong over the past two decades. In the agenda setting process, policy actors from the civil society and legislature have reshaped poverty from an economic problem which should be resolved through economic growth and a labour problem which should be resolved through employee retraining and job matching, to a social justice problem which entails redistributive measures and remedial actions against the sources of injustice. The shift of public perception of the poor from undeserving to deserving, coupled with their stronger political representation, has constituted the change in social construction of different strata of the poor. Such changes in agenda dynamics and social construction have led to surges in policy attention on poverty and the use of different policy tools to address this wicked problem.