Public perceptions of income inequality in Hong Kong: Trends, causes and implications

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 18, Issue 61, 2009, Pages 657-673

  Wong, Timothy K Y ^a   Wan, Po San ^b   Law, Kenneth W K ^c  

^a CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

^b Hong Kong Inst of Vocational   (Hong Kong)

^c LINGNAN UNIVERSITY   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GOVERNANCE APPROACH; INCOME DISTRIBUTION; PERCEPTION; POVERTY; SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS; STATE ROLE; TREND ANALYSIS; WAGE GAP;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; HONG KONG;

EID: 70450031276     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670560903033950     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. World Bank, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 1-2.
2. The respective figure for the world was 3.5%, see Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, Hong Kong 2007 (Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department, 2008), p. 41. The unexpected economic downturn triggered by the Asian financial crisis in late-1997 was relatively short-lived. Since the second half of 2003, Hong Kong has staged a broad-based economic rebound, marked by a strong performance in re-exports, recovering domestic demand, and sustained improvement in the labor market.
3. The respective figure for the world was 3.5%, see Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, Hong Kong 2007 (Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department, 2008), p. 41.
4. During the period 1988-2006, the labor force increased steadily from 2.76 million to 3.58 million and the labor force participation rate was maintained at over 60%. See Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Social and Economic Trends: 1982-1992 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1993), p. 12.
5. Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Social and Economic Trends: 2007 Edition (Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department, 2007), p. 25.
6. According to The Hudson Report, in 2006, 67% of Hong Kong respondents worked more than 50 hours per week and 16% were working significantly longer hours. The latter figure was the highest of any market surveyed in Asia. See Hudson, The Hudson Report: Employment & HR Trends, Asia, April-June 2006, pp. 7-8, available at: http://hk.hudson.com/documents/ASIA_HudsonReport2006Q2.pdf.
7. Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address, available at: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jessejackson1984dnc.htm.
8. Gøsta Esping-Andersen, 'Sociological explanations of changing income distributions', American Behavioral Scientist 50(5), (2007), pp. 639-658.
9. James S. Mosher, 'US wage inequality, technological change, and decline in union power', Politics & Society 35(2), (2007), pp. 225-264.
10. Jesper B. Sørensen, 'Organizational diversity, labor markets, and wage inequality', American Behavioral Scientist 50(5), (2007), pp. 659-676.
11. Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998).
12. Over the past two decades, secondary production as a proportion of GDP and total employment shrank, respectively, from 29.3% to 8.8% (1986-2006) and 42.4% to 13.2% (1987-2007). See HKSAR Government, Hong Kong 2007, p. 44.
13. Census and Statistics Department, 1996 Population By-census: Main Report (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1997), p. 57.
14. Census and Statistics Department, 2006 Population By-census: Thematic Report-Household Income Distribution in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department, 2007), p. 77.
15. Stephen Wing-kai Chiu and Tai-tok Lui, Global City, Dual City?: Globalization and Social Polarization in Hong Kong since the 1990s, Occasional Paper No. 144 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004).
16. And see Legislative Council Secretariat, Causes of Poverty in Hong Kong: A Literature Review (Hong Kong: Legislative Council Secretariat, 2005) for a review of academic discussions on causes of poverty in Hong Kong.
17. Stefan Svallfors, 'Dimensions of inequality: a comparison of attitudes in Sweden and Britain', European Sociological Review 9(3), (1993), p. 271.
18. Carolyn B. Rodriguez, 'An empirical test of the institutionalist view on income inequality: economic growth within the United States', American Journal of Economics and Sociology 59(2), (2000), pp. 303-313.
19. World Bank, World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
20. Mérove Gijsberts, 'The legitimation of income inequality in state-socialist and market societies', Acta Sociologica 45(4), (2002), pp. 269-285.
21. Markus Hadler, 'Why do people accept different income ratios?', Acta Sociologica 48(2), (2005), pp. 131-154.
22. Malte Lübker, Globalization and Perceptions of Social Inequality, Working Paper No. 32 (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005).
23. Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
24. Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser, Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
25. David S. Mason and James R. Kluegel, eds, Marketing Democracy: Changing Opinion about Inequality and Politics in East Central Europe (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000).
26. Martin K. Whyte, 'Popular attitudes toward income inequality in China' (January 2005), paper prepared for the Conference on Income Inequality in China, sponsored by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, available at: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/node/922.
27. This project was conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong, and the Department of Applied Social Sciences of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The project has mainly been funded by the Research Grants Council of the University Grants Committee (RGC Ref. No.: CUHK2/93H, HKU394/96H, PolyU5185/98H, CUHK4331/00H, HKU7255/03H, and PolyU5411/05H).
28. Technical details of each survey were given in the respective survey report, e.g. Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong, eds, Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2004 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005).
29. Lisa A. Keister and Stephanie Moller, 'Wealth inequality in the United States', Annual Review of Sociology no. 26, (2000), pp. 63-81.
30. Frederic L. Pryor, 'The anatomy of increasing inequality of US family incomes', The Journal of Socio-Economics no. 36, (2007), pp. 595-618.
31. Amartya Sen, 'Social justice and the distribution of income', in Anthony B. Atkinson and Franc ̧ois Bourguignon, eds, Handbook of Income Distribution (Amsterdam: Elvesier, 2000), p. 60.
32. Guillermina Jasso, 'On the justice of earnings: a new specification of the justice evaluation function', American Journal of Sociology 83(6), (1978), p. 1414.
33. Lübker, Globalization and Perceptions of Social Inequality, p. 1.
34. Their responses were coded on a five-point scale ranging from 'very minor' to 'very serious'.
35. In the first three surveys, responses were coded on a two-point scale; while in the latter two surveys, responses were coded on a three-point scale.
36. As mentioned above, the first three surveys used a two-point scale, while the latter two used a three-point scale, which will undoubtedly reduce the comparability of the responses over time.
37. Gijsberts, 'The legitimation of income inequality in state-socialist and market societies', pp. 271-272.
38. Hadler, 'Why do people accept different income ratios?', pp. 135-136.
39. George C. Homans, Social Behavior: Its Elementary Form (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1974), pp. 249-250.
40. Martin Kreidl, 'Perceptions of poverty and wealth in Western and post-communist countries', Social Justice Research 13(2), (2000), pp. 157-159
41. Siu-kai Lau, 'Socio-economic discontent and political attitudes', in Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong, eds, Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 2001 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003), p. 45.
42. Timothy Ka-ying Wong, Po-san Wan and Kenneth Wing-kin Law, 'Welfare attitudes and social class: the case of Hong Kong in comparative perspective', International Journal of Social Welfare no. 17, (2008), available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120125231/PDFSTART.
43. According to our surveys, the public's trust in the government fell from 54.7% in 1997 to 46.3% in 1999, 46.6% in 2001, and 37.1% in 2004. It then rose back to 62.6% in 2006.
44. The effect of trust in the government in explaining the perceived seriousness of income disparities was stronger than that in perceived justness; but the opposite held true for the effect of attribution of poverty.
45. HKSAR Government, Hong Kong 2007, p. 41.
46. In our 1999 survey, only 6.2% of the respondents disagreed with the statement that 'Hong Kong's capitalist system is a good system', 9.0% disagreed with 'Hong Kong's capitalist system provides for equal competition', and 72.3% disagreed with 'A fair society is one where the income of everyone is the same'; see Siu-kai Lau, 'Confidence in the capitalist society', in Siu-kai Lau, Ming-kwan Lee, Po-san Wan and Siu-lun Wong, eds, Indicators of Social Development: Hong Kong 1999 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001), pp. 94, 113.
47. According to our 2006 survey, there was a broad consensus among Hongkongers for government assistance in a wide range of social services, namely: providing a decent standard of living for the elderly (96.4%); providing health care for the sick (95.5%); providing decent housing for those who cannot afford it (92.4%); giving financial help to university students from low-income families (92.2%); keeping prices under control (91.5%); providing a decent standard of living for the unemployed (81.7%); reducing income differences between the rich and the poor (72.2%); and providing a job for everyone who wants one (71.9%).
48. During the period 1988-2006, those respondents who saw themselves as belonging to the lower class ranged from 17.7% (in 1990 and 1997) to 24.1% (in 2006). In 2001, only 12.5% of our respondents admitted that they were poor, and 10.7% were pessimistic about the possibility of becoming poor.
49. Although only 31.5% of the respondents saw poverty as resulting from the problems of the poor themselves, our analysis listed in Table 4 revealed that those who were indecisive (26.5%) shared similar perceptions of income inequality as those who laid the blame on the poor themselves.
50. Commission on Poverty, Report of the Commission on Poverty (Hong Kong: Commission on Poverty, The Government of the HKSAR, 2007), p. i.