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Child Poverty in an Affluent City: Trends and Risk Factors in Hong Kong Between 2011 and 2016

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Abstract

The present study explored the salient characteristics of families experiencing child poverty in Hong Kong by analysing two representative cross-sectional datasets from the 2011 Population Census and 2016 By-census. Specifically, to identify trends in child poverty rates and the risk factors underlying these trends, the relative importance of personal demographic, parental, and household characteristics in predicting the likelihood of experiencing child poverty in 2011 and 2016 was explored with samples of 41,265 and 40,127 children aged under 15 respectively. Analyses indicated that child poverty rates in Hong Kong are 21.8% in 2011 and 22.6% in 2016. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the common use of Putonghua or other Chinese dialects at home, having parents with low human capital and unemployed or employed in a non-high paying position, single-parent family structure, and having a high number of non-working dependents are significantly associated with child poverty between 2011 and 2016. Varying between the two census years, but no less significant in predicting child poverty risk, was the child’s ethnic background. In the light of the findings, the importance of adopting contextually appropriate age ranges of the ‘child’ in child poverty research and some policy implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The Gini coefficient is released every five years along with the Hong Kong Population Census.

  2. The GHS is conducted by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Government to provide a comprehensive overview of the population’s demographic and socio-economic characteristics. The most popular databases employed to examine Hong Kong’s (child) poverty situation are derived from the GHS as the resulting sample from the exercise are representative of the Hong Kong population (e.g. Cheung, 2015; Cheung et al., 2018; Chou, 2013).

  3. See https://www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_socialsecurity/.

  4. See https://www.gov.hk/en/residents/employment/jobsearch/employyoung.htm.

  5. See https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hkstat/sub/sc170.jsp.

  6. For more details about YETP, see https://www.yes.labour.gov.hk/aboutus/Objective.

  7. For further information, please see: https://www.youth.gov.hk/en/index.htm.

  8. See Cheung and Chou (2018a, 2018b: 100) for the classification of ethnicity that we followed.

  9. Although both are commonly referred to as ‘Chinese’, Cantonese and Putonghua are linguistically different from each other (see Bruche-Schulz, 1997: 299–303). Cantonese is the dominant language used by majority of the residents in Hong Kong, while Putonghua is the mainstream language in Mainland China.

  10. For clarity, in the two census datasets, the number of persons aged under 18 is 53,708 and 49,160 for 2011 and 2016 respectively. Subtracting the number of those under 18 from those under 15 yields 12,443 and 9,033 persons aged between 15 and 17 for 2011 and 2016 respectively.

  11. In 2009–2010, for example, the Government extended free education in public sector schools—which is the majority type of school in the city—from nine years to 12 years, thereby covering all 6 years of Primary school (Primary one to six) and six years of Secondary school (Secondary one to six). Consequently, one may expect that families continue sending their child to receive full-time education until graduation from Secondary school rather than immediately entering the workforce after coming of age.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Save the Children Hong Kong for offering financial support to the research project entitled Realising the Need of the Most Marginalised Children in Hong Kong (Project No.: 9231250).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

    Paul Vinod Khiatani & Wing Hong Chui

  2. Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 12, 1018 TV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Minnie Heep Ching She

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  1. Paul Vinod Khiatani
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  2. Minnie Heep Ching She
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Correspondence to Wing Hong Chui.

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Khiatani, P.V., She, M.H.C. & Chui, W.H. Child Poverty in an Affluent City: Trends and Risk Factors in Hong Kong Between 2011 and 2016. Child Ind Res 14, 2325–2346 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09845-w

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