Social Values of Welfare Held by Hong Kong Welfare

Social values of welfare held by Hong Kong

Welfare is “all collective interventions to meet certain needs of the individual and/or to serve the wider interests of society may now be broadly grouped into… categories of welfare” (Titmuss, 1959). The development in the social values of welfare has always been changing throughout the centuries, particularly the 20th century. In traditional Chinese society, people used to believed that social welfare, or “fuk lei”, was given by kind-hearted philanthropists in society (N. Chow, 1994, p.325). In the early 20th century, the concept of social welfare was still very weak among Hong Kong people. Majority of welfare services were provided by non-government organizations before 1965 (W. S. Chow, 1993, p. 41). The situation changed after the publication of the white paper of the social welfare in 1965. Together with the rise of social worker, more people consider social welfare is part of their civil rights in the following decades. In 1997, the change in sovereignty of Hong Kong and the Asian financial crisis brought a significant impact on the social values of welfare. In the following paragraphs, I will briefly discuss the development of social welfare in Hong Kong and the corresponding social values of welfare, particularly the changes before and after 1997. As will be argued, there are both long term and short term factors that led the changes. The former would be the increasing consideration of civil rights and the latter would be the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the change in sovereignty of Hong Kong and the publication of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Review.

In the early 20th century, majority of people considered welfare was given by kind-hearted philanthropists in society. As Hong Kong was a colony of Britain at that time, the colonial government put their focuses on protecting the British’s interest, particularly the British merchants. Hence, the living environment and welfare of local Chinese...