Poverty In Hong Kong

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There are some major causes of poverty in Hong Kong, which are related to Hong Kong’s history. In 80th century, HK economy was changing from the manufacturing industry to the financial industry. At that time, workers with more techniques and knowledge were demanded for the financial industry. Many manufacturing workers were knocked out at that time because most of them are low-educable and they became unemployed. In 70th century, the manufacturing economies in Hong Kong have moved to Zhu Jiang Delta. This decreased the job opportunities for the manufacturing workers furtherly. The workers who worked for manufacturing industry before had no working experiences and knowledge on this particular area. As a result, their income decreased. In the …show more content…

First of all, intergenerational poverty is defined as the situation when a person continues to live in poverty as an adult after growing up in households with limited means because of the effects of growing up in poverty, such as poor education and ill-health. These effects continue to affect their lives. It refers to the poverty transmitted from one generation to another and it can be a long-term effect. If children were born in a family with poor nutrition, inadequate education and health care, few assets or a lack of opportunities, they are more likely to become poor adults in the future and it can be a worse cycle. The second type of poverty is elderly poverty. The elderly in Hong Kong are both the poorest people in the city and the poorest people in the developed world. In 2017, 289,000 of the 1.34 million people living in poverty are elderly. According to calculations released by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, close to a third of people aged 65 and over are classified as poor. Also, among 30 developed economic regions listed in a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report, this is second only to South Korea, where the figure is about …show more content…

This produces a lot of problems, especially the housing problem. In Hong Kong, the land rent is extremely high which most of the low-income workers cannot afford the high housing cost. Therefore, the phenomenon of subdivided flats, coffin cubicles and cage homes exists. The above three types of flats are buildings being divided into two or more individual rooms, which remove the original non-structural partition walls. The new buildings are erected and new toilets and kitchens are installed. Also, internal drains are added or altered. However, these buildings are full of problems which put the residents on risk. For example, the safety and hygiene condition of the buildings are poor so adverse impacts will be caused if not handled properly. Most of the subdivided flats, coffin cubicles and cage homes are located in old residential buildings. It is estimated that 280,000 people live in subdivided flats in HK and they are mainly unemployed citizens, low income family and new immigrants. The average size of a subdivides is 30 square feet per person and the rent per month of it is $2000 or above. Therefore, it’s totally not worth paying for these tiny living spaces and ridiculous living environment. There are two major factors of the phenomenon. Firstly, this is due to the shortage of housing supply in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an area of large number of mountains and high hills while small number of

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