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26 August 2009

CUHK Survey Reveals Post-Financial Crisis Attitudes of Hong Kongers and Taiwanese Towards Social Risk Management

A telephone poll on the attitudes of Hong Kongers and Taiwanese towards managing social risks after the financial tsunami was jointly conducted by scholars in Hong Kong and Taiwan in early July 2009. Professor Wong Chack-kie, Professor at the Social Work Department and Associate Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), conducted the survey in Hong Kong, while the Taiwan poll was conducted by Professor Kate Wang, a social work professor of the Graduate Institute of Social Work at Taiwan Normal University. The study was done by random sampling.

The study reveals that both societies endorsed a strong role of the government in regulating the markets: 93.4% in Hong Kong and 75.9% in Taiwan. More Taiwanese (48.7%) than Hong Kongers (30.7%) felt they suffered losses in personal investments or savings due to the financial tsunami. More Taiwanese were worried about social risks such as the lack of income security in unemployment, low income in employment and poverty problems, than the people of Hong Kong, except for income insecurity for the elderly. People from both societies demonstrated strong expectations towards their governments to assist middle-lower income households should the economic situation worsen: 89.1% in Taiwan and 77.9% in Hong Kong.

In terms of causation, people from both societies saw the lack of income security in unemployment, low income in employment and poverty problem as largely caused by social and economic factors, rather than personal factors and government policy, except in the case of the lack of income security for the elderly, which was largely regarded as the outcome of government policy. Moreover, 58.4% of Hong Kongers and 41.3% of Taiwanese were willing to pay more taxes to improve social welfare. They also favoured regressive taxation: 86.2% in Taiwan and 79.3% in Hong Kong.

In terms of context-specific policy measures for managing social risks, the people of Hong Kong were supportive of establishing the traditional social security systems and policies such as minimum wage, wage subsidies, cash coupon, unemployment insurance, and even universal pension on top of the present forced savings scheme – the Mandatory Provident Fund.

Other Interesting Findings
• More Hong Kongers, who believe in a free economy, than Taiwanese, expected their government to play a stronger role in regulating the financial system.
• More Taiwanese believed themselves seriously hurt by the financial tsunami.
• The Hong Kong and Taiwan governments might be a little relieved to know that people in both places tended to blame the macro factors of social and economic situations than personal or governmental factors in causing social risks, such as unemployment, working poverty and poverty, except for income insecurity for the elderly.
• In terms of policy recommendations, traditional social security policies and systems still had strong public support despite their not having been favoured by the authorities in Hong Kong, both before and after 1997.

It is worthy to note that even though Hong Kong will soon launch the minimum wage policy, all the other measures or social security systems suggested in the survey are not in the pipeline despite strong public demand as demonstrated by this poll. Apparently, there is a policy or systemic gap in Hong Kong’s management of social risks for the economic downturn as portrayed in the expectations of the people in the present poll conducted after the financial tsunami.

Professor Wong Chack-kie, Professor at the Social Work Department and Associate Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at CUHK