Intergenerational poverty that cannot be solved by different governments

To solve the problem of intergenerational poverty was proposed by Tung Chee-hwa when he was the Chief Executive, but it has not been solved until now. Obviously, the government has been using the wrong method all the time.

The new Chief Executive, Li Jiachao, announced on Wednesday (6th) the establishment of the "Action Team for Underprivileged Students to Escape Intergenerational Poverty" led by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-kee, to implement the policy platform of helping underprivileged junior high school students to escape intergenerational poverty. See Prescribe the right medicine.

Many academic studies have pointed out that there is a lack of upward mobility in Hong Kong society, and the lower class continues and even replicates across generations.

For example, during his tenure at the University of Hong Kong, James Vere, a government economist, used a household survey in the 2000s to find that if a father has a professional job, about 43% of his children have the opportunity to also have a professional job, which is much higher than the proportion of the general population.

Zhou Jili, a scholar at the University of Education, used 2011 census data to compare the rates of college admissions among young people. The difference between children from wealthy families and children from poor families can be as much as 3.7 times.

In a recent study funded by the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office, City University scholar Ho Rongzong and others followed up with a total of 77 interviewed poor families in 2021, and found that the parents are poor young children, and they have a better life after birth. Opportunities are 67% lower than those of children of non-poor parents.

The survey indicated that children from poor families who could not afford the opportunity to participate in homework remedial classes and extracurricular activities.

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Action teams cannot cure root causes or even cure existing injustices

Since the late Tung Chee-hwa administration, several chief executives have also proposed measures to alleviate intergenerational poverty.

As early as 2008, the government proposed the establishment of a child development fund, which proposed mentoring, personal development planning and targeted savings.

Li Jiachao's "Action Group for Students from Disadvantaged Groups to Get Rid of Intergenerational Poverty" is largely imitated by the Children's Development Fund.

The action team proposed to recruit 2,000 people in each batch. Mentors and friends will share life experiences, arrange activities such as work shadowing programs, and help students develop financial management concepts. The program will use its funds to practice students' personal development plans.

The program expects students to develop a positive outlook on life and upstream motivation to help them escape poverty.

Several governments have introduced measures, but the problem of intergenerational poverty has not subsided.

The whole plan may allow the beneficiary students to increase their social network and learn how to save under the guidance of their mentors, so that they have more resources to study and have a better chance to find a good job, but the first batch of beneficiaries is only 2,000 people, compared with tens of thousands of poor people. Junior high school students are just a drop in the bucket.

The more important problem is that the plan has not fundamentally made the social system suitable for everyone. The argument of "cultivating a correct financial management concept" is more like attributing the responsibility of intergenerational poverty to the next generation's lack of investment and financial management.

Having a skill can really improve your life with hard work

To truly enable today's students to improve their own lives and that of their parents by themselves, to surpass their parents' income and status, and to escape poverty, the government must get rid of their stereotypes and take the lead in reforming the social system.

Many people also think of education, giving subsidies or subsidizing poor students to catch up with the children of the rich.

Specifically, the government can actively expand vocational education, so that poor students can find more ways to further their studies even if they do not have the advantages of contacts, resources, and study tours, and have skills to increase their competitiveness.

In terms of employment, we must also make the fruits of economic development universally beneficial to the general public, and let the hard-working and hard-working grassroots get the rewards they deserve.

The government can also build public housing and regulate subsidised housing rentals as supplementary measures, so that poor families can save expenses and mobilize their income for their children's education and interests, so as not to lose learning opportunities due to financial constraints.

It is undeniable that changing education and social systems is more complicated and difficult than setting up action groups to run mentorship programs and implement personal development plans.

However, just as President Xi Jinping mentioned in his speech on the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to "effective solutions to people's livelihood problems", if the new government wants to "effectively" solve the long-term problem of intergenerational poverty, it must get rid of its inherent thinking, and it is unnecessary to seek fish for nothing.

Since the new government has already "hit the shift", it should immediately implement the reform work. Can the addition of a deputy director improve the efficiency of governance?

Hong Kong is not a third world but two worlds