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Social Welfare Policy Analysis

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The term “social welfare” in its broadest sense, includes all social institution like education, health, housing, public assistance, services for persons with disabilities, and other related activities. Social welfare policymaking has quite a lot to do with economic development as social welfare seems to be especially important to a developed society. This paper will use the situation in Hong Kong to first discover the relationship between economic development and social welfare policymaking, mainly being interrelated, and even subordinated; it will then consider the co-existing cooperation and contradiction between the economic and welfare principle; and finally, the researching, advocating and evaluating role and position of social worker …show more content…

Social welfare policymaking also influence economic development, however, in a subordinate and subsidiary way. To both the Colonial and the HKSAR Government, economy always comes first in their mindset even for welfare policymaking. For example, for the start of large-scale social policy reform after the 1967 riots, it was to protect Hong Kong’s status as an investment-friendly environment and developing Asian hub for international business (Lam & Blyth, 2014, p.47). Social welfare policymaking in Hong Kong has been productivist in nature in which “social policy is strictly subordinate to the overriding policy objective of economic growth” (Holliday, 2000, p.708). The characteristic of “productivist welfare capitalism” is the minimal social rights with extensions linked to productive activity (Wong, 2012, p.278). It means that the government set great store by those programmes which can contribute to economic development, for example, education, healthcare and public rental housing, while they hesitate when making policies like retirement benefits and income redistribution measures. Quite deliberately, the welfare system of Hong Kong does not exist to iron out inequalities. In the government’s mind, it will be best if social welfare policies can also act as an investment for future economic development. The following statement by the former Financial Secretary John Tsang would best summarize the subordinate position and the productivist nature of Hong Kong social welfare policy: “our investment in education, infrastructure and social welfare aims to enhance overall competitiveness and to upgrade the capabilities of our citizens so they can rise to social and economic changes, which will in turn enhance social mobility” (HKG, 2010, para

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