Hong Kong Wealth Gap

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Hong Kong Wealth Gap

Who are the poor in Hong Kong?

Many are low- skilled laborers sidelined by the rush of manufacturers relocating to China.

One-parent families increased from 5,500 in 1989 to 13,408 last year. According to the Social Welfare Department, 40% of 26,000 single parents are jobless.

17% of the new immigrants have a monthly family income of less than $385.

An aging population without family support has also worsened the problem.

How to identify the problem?

International View

According to the “Development of the Human Race Report”, which published in 2005, the wealth gap of Hong Kong is the widest within the thirty high living standard countries/regions.

Local View

The rich is getting richer, and the poor is getting poorer. For instance, in 2001, 10% of the highest income family in Hong Kong, their natural income still had 5% growth after the 97 Financial Storms. On the other hand, the natural income of 60% Hong Kong family kept decreasing at the same time.

Sometime, the wealth gap problem is a type of circulation. For example, some poor is living in poverty life because he/she had low educational level and he/she now cannot afford the education fee for their children, when the children grow up, they will remain poor or even poorer.

Yet out of Hong Kong’s seven million residents, an estimated 1.25 million people are living below the poverty line.

 You may ask what does the life of poor people look like. Well, nothing, they have nothing at all. Imagine you are living in a “cage home”, a “flat” which can only let you sit and sleep, everyday you eat pot noodles for every meal, wear the same clothes and use the same towel without cleaning, how dirty is it! Besides, when you go to the street, people stand back from you because you are so dirty. The adults may point at you and tell the children to study hard so that they don’t need to live like you in the future. What is your feeling of these? Yes, it is another problem, discrimination. Poverty is the excuse of discrimination. People are not actually care about the feelings of poor people.

Definition of poverty

Poverty means going short materially, socially and emotionally. It means spending less on food, on heating, and on clothing than someone on an average income. Above all, poverty takes away the tools to build the blocks for the future – your” life chance”. It steals away the opportunity to have a life unmarked by sickness, a decent education, secure home and a long retirement.

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Gini Coefficient

Gini coefficient is one of the indicators of income inequality. Although it may not reflect the whole picture of income inequality, the figure is above 0.5 implied the problem of income inequality may be existed.

In 2006, Hong Kong is in great hazard seeing that our Gini Coefficient has risen from 0.518 in 1996 to 0.533. Compared to about 0.424 to 0.513 in Canada, Singapore and England, Hong Kong has an extremely high coefficient.

However, the HKSAR government claimed that the calculation of Gini coefficient is not suitable in Hong Kong and Donald Tsang, who is the Chief ...

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