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最低工資有幾低? 貧窮新一代的就業困境報告
Get PDF為了解香港青年對就業、貧窮、體面生活、相關政策的看法，以及他們收入和支出的情況，嶺南大學政策研究院、文化研究及發展中心聯合進行一項題為《最低工資有幾低？貧窮新一代的就業困境報告》的調查。結果發現，四成接受深度訪談的青年自認貧窮，而絕大部分已有全職工作的受訪青年認為，最低工資調整幅度太低，自己未能受惠。
嶺大研究團隊從2022年5月至12月，先後透過兩輪深度訪談，訪問了67位18至29歲、收入低於2萬元、有工作經驗的青年。另外，團隊亦透過兩輪問卷調查，分別收集到164份及253份有效回覆。
調查結果發現，絕大部分年輕人覺得自己的工資太低，待遇與工作不相稱。受訪青年的收入來源包括全職工作、兼職工作。深度訪談年輕人的收入中位數為15,200元，而問卷調查的收入中位數結果則是6,000至9,999元。一方面，大部分有全職工作的青年認為自己工時長、部分行業長期低薪，比不上任職其他行業的同輩，而覺得不滿。壓力同時來自高昂的生活成本和遙不可及的人生目標，包括置業。
大約四成接受第二輪深度訪談的青年自認是貧窮，他們對於貧窮有多元化的理解。有青年認為三餐不繼才算得上貧窮，有些人覺得人工未達到港人月入中位數就算是貧窮，亦有人認很多目標未能達成，導致「精神貧窮」。其餘自覺不貧窮的青年部分歸因於家庭支援，可以滿足基本需求以外的消費，例如購物和旅遊。
絕大部分已有全職工作的受訪青年覺得最低工資調整幅度太低，自己未能受惠。無論認為自己屬於中產或基層的受訪者，均有共識，認為即使法定最低工資水平提升至40元依然是太低，與市場脫節，調整幅度不合理。不少人往往將最低工資時薪和「一餐飯」的開支掛鉤，認為最低工資水平要吃得起「一餐飯」才合理。受訪者認為最低工資如有合理升幅及政策檢討，對基層家庭及兼職工作者有很大幫助。
問卷調查結果推算，受訪青年要滿足現時的生活開支水平，時薪應該要達到71.6元。問卷調查的結果顯示青年的個人月均生活支出為16,789元，扣除教育開支，平均每月支出約14,894元，按一個月工作26日，每日8小時計算出時薪水平為71.6元，與目前最低工資水平相距很遠。
研究團隊建議，政府應從多方面著手解決此迫切的社會問題。首先，當局應檢討最低工資政策的定位，使它與其他扶貧政策互相配合，以保障不同需要的群體；第二，當局應透明化最低工資的調整過程，改為「一年一檢」；第三，團隊建議重啟標準工時立法程序，訂明標準工時應為每周40小時，加班工資應為正常工資的1.5倍，每月亦應設有加班和總工時上限，並以此為基礎制定「過勞死」的法律定義，把過勞死定為僱主須按《僱員補償條例》（第282章）作出補償的事故。最後，團隊建議政府主動開展設立失業保障制度的工作，包括探討供款式失業保險、檢討現行失業綜援、遣散費／長期服務金，並重視年輕人對相關政策的意見。https://commons.ln.edu.hk/ccrd_report/1003/thumbnail.jp
Cultural heritage and ecological architecture
No full textModerator: BIN Huizhong (Shanghai University, China)
Speakers: Cristina ENGEL DE ALVAREZ (Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil) YAN Aibin (East China University of Science and Technology, China) Eka SWADIANSA (Office of Strategic Architecture, Indonesia
The Covid-19 crisis and intergenerational relations : the case of Hong Kong families with older parents ageing in the Greater Bay Area in Mainland China
Get PDFThe Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been developed by the Chinese central government since 2016. Driven by the development of the Greater Bay Area, the well-developed transportation has further provided chances for Hong Kong older people to reside in the mainland GBA cities. The relevant Hong Kong government departments have made a comparison showing that the number of Hong Kong older people (aged 65 and above) who are ageing in the Greater Bay Area of mainland China has increased to around 90,200 in 2019, a 33% increase from 2013. Given the most updated situation, these Hong Kong families with older parents ageing in the mainland GBA cities can be influenced by a series of preventive measures and it is no exception to assume that their intergenerational relations can be influenced. Unlike the current literature that focuses only on the intergenerational relationships among migrant or transnational families, this study adopts a qualitative approach to provide insights into intergenerational relationships in the unique China-Hong Kong cross-border context under the latest situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the adoption of intergenerational solidarity-conflict model, 23 in-depth interviews are conducted with Hong Kong cross-border older parents and their adult children, indicating with the influence of the public health, cross-border mobility, economic downturn, work policies and pandemic prevention policies, the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the intergenerational relations of these Hong Kong families in a certain degree, particularly in six aspects, including short-term living arrangement, filial expectations and obligations, intergenerational interactions and support, intergenerational intimacy and adherence to their values and beliefs. These Hong Kong families used a variety of coping strategies to maintain their intergenerational relations during the pandemic, including the usage of ICTs, ignoring or keeping silent, asking for help, reliance on filial beliefs, decreased expectations on filial obligations and providing emotional instead of instrumental care. Furthermore, this study indicated that the different aspects are interrelated because the six aspects of intergenerational solidarity are included in the intergenerational solidarity-conflict model. Moreover, the cross-border travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have motivated the trend of older parents’ independent ageing in the mainland-Hong Kong cross-border context. Accordingly, this trend in the cross-border context reflects on the changing expectations of the Hong Kong cross-border older parents through lowering their expectations of filial obligations to their adult children and changing the intergenerational contract from expectations of reciprocity to being more independent in the pandemic era. Finally, the policy implications are indicated in this study
《世説新語》中的時代文學圖景
Get PDF與魏晋時清談盛行的局面相應，文學創作中也出現了口語興盛的現象；因出於公開展演的情境需要，文學創作對於迅捷的要求大爲增加。在文本傳播過程中，名流人士的話語起著不可估量的作用；由於當時以手抄本爲文章物質載體，讀者對作品的接受回饋，往往可以讓作者隨之更定，文本流動也是傳播中的常見現象。魏晋時期的文學接受，讀者更注重閲讀中個性的契合，强調情感的共鳴，當日發達的藝術形式，也爲時人的文學接受提供了多種可能，使他們可以通過繪畫、書法等不同藝術達到對文學的多維解讀。
Literary writing thrived on orality in response to the popularity of pure intellectual conversations in the Wei and Jin dynasties. Its immediacy was prominently emphasized to satisfy the contextual needs of public performance. Famous literary figures’ sayings were immeasurably important in the circulation of texts. Because texts were primarily materialized and circulated as handwritten manuscripts, authors often revised readers’ feedback as they wished. On the part of literary reception, readers valued whether they felt their personalities matched the authors’ and whether they felt sympathetic in reading literary works. The thriving aesthetic format at the time provided readers with possibilities for literary reception as they understood literature from various perspectives through painting, calligraphy, and other art forms
A socio-ecological barrier to regular migration, regularization and healthcare access for Myanmar irregular migrant workers in Thailand
Get PDFThe Myanmar people have been migrating to Thailand since the 1980s through regular or irregular channels for better livelihood opportunities. Over the past decade, they have significantly contributed to the economic development of both sending and receiving states. Thailand and Myanmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate labour migration in 2003. The agreement aims to ensure that migrant workers have access to regular employment channels in Thailand and improve their employment rights. Under a bilateral agreement, migrant workers employed under the MOU can stay in Thailand for four years. However, they must apply for visa renewals every two years for the next two years.
Since 1992, the Royal Thai Government (RTG) has issued a cabinet resolution to regularize those who have migrated irregularly or have become irregular after migrating to Thailand. It permits irregular migrant workers to purchase health insurance and work legally for one–two years after registration. However, a large amount of available literature suggests that unregistered migrant worker numbers are higher than the registered numbers. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the push factors for migration, barriers to regular channel migration, how and why some migrants become irregular post-regular migration, challenges associated with the regularization system, and difficulties related to accessing healthcare services among Myanmar irregular migrant workers (MIMWs) in Thailand.
This study employed a mixed-method research design. A total of 398 individuals completed the online survey, and 43 individuals from MIMWs and NGO practitioners from migrant healthcare, labour protection, and legal advisors participated in the in-depth interviews. The quantitative data were analysed descriptively, while the qualitative data were analysed thematically using the socio-ecological model, emphasising intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, community, and policy factors.
This study found that Myanmar people migrated voluntarily and forcibly due to wage disparities between Thailand and Myanmar, limited employment opportunities, and political and economic instability, particularly after the coup of February 2021. Additionally, officials\u27 corruption, an inadequate monitoring system for implementing an MOU migration recruitment program, long waiting periods, and an absence of bilateral cooperation between Thailand and Myanmar in sanctioning employers and agencies that violate the regulations are significant barriers to regular migration. In addition, the corruption of Thai officials, turning a blind eye to employers who violate labour laws, contributed to several MOU workers\u27 exploitation and irregular employment. On the other hand, the Thai Cabinet resolutions are pro-employers, which means that national interests are placed above the intention to allow irregular migrants to fully legalize themselves, which is the reason for the low registration rates.
Consequently, migrant workers are unable to access and benefit from this policy because of its inconsistent and restrictive nature. Additionally, the significant barriers to accessing healthcare are caused by restrictive policies, exclusions from healthcare services, high costs, discriminatory treatment, and widespread arrests and deportations among irregular migrant populations.
Therefore, sending and receiving states must reform MOU recruitment practices and ensure that existing laws are rigorously enforced to achieve United Nations resolutions on safe and regular migration
Two essays on pollution, trade and industries in China
Get PDFThe relationship between environment and human economic activities is intricately intertwined. This thesis delves into the investigation of the causal effect of pollution on exports and, in turn, examines the impacts of industrial intelligence on the environment. It is organized into two chapters. The first chapter of the thesis studies whether and how air pollution affects firms’ exports based on Chinese data (2000-2007). The literature on the correlation between trade and environment is vast, but studies almost exclusively focus on the causal effects of trade on environment. This study examines the reverse effects. In the analysis, we use PM2.5 concentrations as a proxy for air pollution and employing thermal inversion as an instrumental variable. We find that a 1% increase in PM2.5 leads to a 0.79% reduction in firms’exports. This adverse effect of air pollution on exports is mainly attributed to the intensive margins as opposed to the extensive margins. The result is robust to various specifications of model and measurement. Our mechanism analysis identifies two channels: (1) air pollution decreases exports by reducing firm productivity, and (2) air pollution invites stringent environmental regulations, which reduces exports as firms need to increase abatement costs or reduce production to meet the environment standards. The second chapter of the thesis studies the complex relationship between industrial intelligence, energy consumption, and environmental impact. The shift towards intelligent production is gradually transforming the global production landscape, with significant impacts on energy consumption and the environment. China, a major energy consumer and top emitter of pollutants, is rapidly transitioning towards intelligent manufacturing. The effects of this shift on energy consumption and the environment will play a crucial role in determining the future of global energy reserves, the environment, and sustainable development. Using city-level industrial intelligence indicators, this study reveals that industrial intelligence increases electricity consumption but reduces sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. Interestingly, the SO2 reduction is more pronounced in regions that rely on electricity imports since the potential pollution from the increased electricity consumption could be exported to the other regions due to the geographic separation between electricity consumption and production in China. Over the years, the advancement of industrial intelligence intensifies the emission-burden electricity shifting
Essays on comparative statics for choice under risk and ambiguity
Get PDFThis dissertation contains three essays on choice under risk and ambiguity. In the first essay, we investigate the effects of changes in ambiguity aversion in a recursive smooth ambiguity aversion model. Wang and Li [Wang J. and Li J. (2020) Comparative Ambiguity Aversion in Intertemporal Decisions. J. Risk Insurance 87(1): 195-212] explore this topic under the assumption that the current payment increases the future expected utility conditional on any given ambiguity parameter, which limits the applicability of their conclusions. In this paper, we report that this assumption can be relaxed. We further show that, the comparative ambiguity aversion result provides broader applicability for fundamental economics decision-making problems, e.g., investment and self-protection with decision externalities.
In the second essay, we investigate the comparative statics on the choice of a cutoff point in a screening test program. By considering interdependence between wealth and health, this study illustrates the importance of higher-order bivariate preferences on the choice of an optimal screening test schedule. We show that when background risk is introduced to the wealth dimension, the preferences, temperance in wealth, cross temperance in health and cross temperance, lead to a more aggressive choice, indicated by higher sensitivity of the test program. We further show that increasing the correlation between a health-related background risk and the basic two-dimensional risk increases the decision makers\u27 inclination toward higher sensitivity tests if they show correlation aversion and risk aversion. Last, we demonstrate comparative choice on test characteristics when the second-period wealth experiences a mean-preserving spread.
In the third essay, we develop measures for three types of risk that exert a pair of risk tradeoffs on initial random wealth. The three measures are independent of the agent accepting the risk and are monotone with respect to specific stochastic dominance orders. We show that the duality axiom could characterize the risk measures. We then apply the risk measures to three other risk tradeoffs that involve three changes in risk. We show that the risk measures could infer the choices for two agents on two outcome lotteries. In addition, we augment the literature on separation theorem by providing decomposition for the risk tradeoffs defined in this paper. Finally, we briefly discuss the implications of the duality axioms in a one-period self-protection model
Challenging domesticity, mobilizing indigeneity : the Igorot migrant domestic workers of Hong Kong
Get PDFThis dissertation examines the cultures of migrant activism, social media vlogging, and pageantry among Igorot migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, focusing on how these Indigenous women from the Cordillera region of the Philippines reshape indigeneity in the diaspora. Fieldwork data from participant observation and key informant interviews with the Igorot migrant domestic workers enriched the cultural analysis in this research that engaged with Jose Esteban Muñoz’s notion of “disidentification.” This research forwards “transgressive indigeneity,” or the creative and subversive labor behind the performances of Igorotness and Igorot culture in Hong Kong. Transgressive indigeneity demonstrates the embodied interrelationship of indigeneity and domesticity observed in migrant cultures. Transgressive indigeneity intervenes in debates surrounding Igorot indigeneity and the Filipino identity by demonstrating the translation of Indigenous culture into Hong Kong’s cosmopolitanism by Igorot migrant domestic workers subverting and transgressing against the online and onsite spaces of domestic work as they participate in Indigenous and transnational domestic labor activism on the one hand, and, on the other, engage in social media content creation and pageantry.
Chapter 1 discusses the prevailing literature on domestic labor and domesticity in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the diaspora, paying attention to how migrant domestic workers transgress against their domestic labor conditions while examining and addressing the gap of homogenous and gendered representations of an otherwise ethnically nuanced migrant domestic worker community. Chapter 2 discusses the genealogy of indigeneity and indigenism and how it shapes the Indigenous identification and representation of the Igorot in the Philippines and elsewhere in the diaspora while establishing the link between domesticity and indigeneity, informing the broader theoretical framework of transgressive indigeneity and the ethnographic method that enriched the cultural analysis deployed in the subsequent chapters.
Chapter 3 focuses on Igorot migrant activists and their online and onsite protest activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. I describe the salakniban or defense of Igorot ancestral land in Hong Kong and its multi-modal, flexible, and multi-sited activism that simultaneously negotiates and subverts the spaces and limitations of their domestic labor while sustaining their political advocacies limited by anti-pandemic regulations and threatened by the dual anti-terrorism measures enforced in Hong Kong and the Philippines. In Chapter 4, I analyze the Igorot migrant as an emergent microcelebrity Influencer, publishing content on YouTube and Facebook. I highlight how indigeneity and domesticity are made into social media content and self-brands and its opportunities and consequences that enable self-making, social mobility, and creative agency. Finally, in Chapter 5, I analyze the showcasing of the “modernized” inabel in the Igorot migrant pageants and the figure of the Igorot migrant pageant queen. While the inabel Indigenous textile connects Hong Kong to local weaving communities in the Cordillera, fostering a transnational/local creative community, the queer cultural cross-dressing of the traditional form and function of the inabel spotlights the empowered self-making of Igorot contestants defying pure notions of tradition and bodily conventions while restaging the colonial and national discourses of pageantry, politics, and migrancy.
I conclude the study by reflecting on the construction of the Indigenous home village or ili in the diaspora that sustains and enables transgressive indigeneity, fostering Indigenous belonging in the cosmopolitan context of Hong Kong. Ultimately, I reiterate transgressive indigeneity by linking to key arguments made in each chapter, including the limitations and recommendations for future research to expand on this study’s transgressive possibilities
Dissertation on applied micro-economics
Get PDFMy PhD thesis is composed of two chapters. The first chapter evaluates the effectiveness of China’s anti-corruption campaign in 2012 by conducting a difference-in-difference analysis of product-city-level cigarette consumption data from 2007 to 2014. The analysis found that following the campaign, there was an increase in sales of middle-end cigarettes and a decrease in sales of luxury cigarettes, which contrasts with the trend for lower-end cigarettes. This substitution pattern may be attributed to a decrease in public spending on luxury goods, and the patter is also influenced by officials’ wages. Additionally, our findings suggest that provinces with more intense anti-corruption efforts experienced a greater decline in luxury cigarettes sales. The second chapter studies the effect of early maternal distress on children’s long-run outcomes. Exploiting longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study in the UK, we find that exposure to maternal distress in early life are more likely to be involved in risky behaviors. The results are likely driven by maternal time investment in early childhood, especially education time investment