Social policy change in a hybrid regime : the case of retirement protection in Hong Kong

Abstract

This thesis uses the case of post-colonial Hong Kong to explore how different factors affect social policy changes in a hybrid regime. A three-level framework of structural factors, hybrid regime political institutions, and actor interaction is utilized to explain the change in aggregate social spending, differential sectoral priority across four welfare areas (education, social security, health care, and housing), and policy change in retirement protection. The analysis highlights the importance of hybrid regime institutions and actor dynamics in causing incremental policy changes. Post-colonial Hong Kong experienced retrenchment in social spending due to severe hits from the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998 and the SARS epidemic in 2003. The alternative of expansionary social policy was forgone due to constitutional constraints, lack of political competition for the Chief Executive (CE) position, and stillness of civil society. The rapid expansion of social spending since 2012 can be explained by sustained economic growth and the increase in representation and competitiveness of the CE election. However, the expansion has been uneven across welfare sectors. Education has higher priority than social protection and health care, leaving public housing an area of persistent containment. Actor dynamics of welfare professionals with their sectoral representation in the CE and legislative election affect the cross-sector distribution of welfare. Union activism, political orientation, and centralized leadership in welfare sectors are key to explaining the emphasis on education over social protection and health care. The containment in public housing is driven by elite and mass politics. With property-owning elites and the middle class having marked vested interest in the private property market, the government has resorted to minimizing its effort in public housing programs. In the case of retirement protection, civil society organizations and the opposition have advocated for a state-run universal retirement protection scheme since 2004. The long fight has failed to introduce a public state pension but resulted in two expansions of the original means-tested social assistance scheme in 2013 and 2018. This study posits that the work of civil society organizations made a universal scheme a viable agenda. Majority public opinion driven by societal and opposition mobilization together with electoral pressure created constraints on pro-establishment parties and state elites, leading to the expansions. Specifically, competition among state elites in the CE election induced a race-to-the-top effect in welfare expansion. Nonetheless, state control over the skewed legislature through pro-establishment parties prevented the societal proposal from being legitimized without the consent of the state. The use of authoritative consultation and the work of pro-establishment actors provided state elites the leverage to sway public opinion to eventually turn down universal retirement protection. This case study reflects the nature of hybrid regime institutions — both as a stabilizing and controlling device, and as a vulnerable point for the opposition to elicit change.