The Policy Measures Used by the Hong Kong Government to Respond to the Adult Worker Model and the Male-breadwinner Model

Abstract

There have been ongoing discussions on the male-breadwinner model and the adult worker model in research on family-related welfare policies. The male-breadwinner model posits that men work full-time outside the home and women take on domestic work. The adult worker model suggests that women and men should be equally expected to play an active role in the paid labor market. The aim of this article is to explore the responses made by the Hong Kong government to these two models. We meet this aim by presenting two analytical tasks. First, we study the policy measures used by the Hong Kong government to support women in their participation in formal employment and the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) as well as other policy measures that offer potential for enabling family care providers to accumulate resources for secure retirement. Second, we discuss the findings of our study on Hong Kong young women by focusing on their views on the extent to which the government supports them to save pension incomes through the Mandatory Provident Fund and exploring alternative ways for them to achieve secure retirement. Based on these two analytical tasks, we argue that the Hong Kong government uses a 'weak action strategy' to respond to the adult worker model and the malebreadwinner model, and that this strategy fails to meet women's diverse preferences for their roles in the labor market and the family.

Rethinking the residual policy response: Lessons from Hong Kong older women’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In particular, older women deserve additional attention. Due to traditional gendered expectations, women are often expected to meet the care needs in the family, which hamper their career development (Kroger, 2011; Yu et al, 2021). Previous research has shown that compared with men, women tend to encounter greater difficulties in saving sufficient pension incomes for retirement through the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) in Hong Kong (Yu et al, 2021).…”

“…Chiu and Wong (2005: 89) suggest that traditional Chinese family values, such as love for one’s family and the importance of collective responsibility, have been used by the Hong Kong government as ‘a means to contain social welfare costs’ to justify the residual welfare model. Other scholars also argue that by stressing the family and the market as important channels for meeting people’s needs, the government can lower people’s expectations on public policy and avoid political challenges (Yu et al, 2021). The analysis of the social policy in Hong Kong is influenced significantly by the Productive Welfare Capitalism Thesis (Holliday, 2000).…”

“…Due to traditional gendered expectations, women are often expected to meet the care needs in the family, which hamper their career development (Kroger, 2011; Yu et al, 2021). Previous research has shown that compared with men, women tend to encounter greater difficulties in saving sufficient pension incomes for retirement through the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) in Hong Kong (Yu et al, 2021). In other words, women tend to suffer from fewer opportunities for staying in the work economy and resultant increased risks of poverty in their old age compared with their male counterparts.…”

Adult Worker Model Typologies: Examining Work–Family Policies in Fifteen European Countries

“…Unlike the unsupported adult worker model, the supported adult worker model stresses that, if a government wants to encourage women to take part in formal employment, it should employ a proactive strategy, which is associated with the principle of gender equality [ 3 ]. Governments favouring this strategy are expected to actively support women to balance their labour force participation and care duties [ 8 ]. Studies show that an important way to do so is to reduce the costs of care provision borne by the family through the provision of care support measures, including subsidised childcare services, paid maternity leave benefits, and paid father-specific leave benefits [ 1 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”