Sociology Commons^™

Upward Earnings Mobility On The Decline In Hong Kong? A Study Based On Census Data, Lok Sang Ho, Kai Wai Huang, Xiangdong Wei

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

This paper offers a new intuitive approach using census data to cast light on earnings mobility. We find that in Hong Kong upward mobility opportunities indeed fell for those born in the mid 70s and later, but that there has been a remarkable improvement for degree holders in recent years. Contrary to common belief, even though starting salaries had fallen, degree holders more or less maintained their relative advantage by age 31-35. Moreover, among degree holders, beginning in 2011 upward mobility showed an improvement for all cohorts at the higher income end though less so at the lower end. The …

Happiness Of Children As They Grow Into Their Teens : The Hong Kong Case, Lok Sang Ho

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

This paper reports the results of a dual survey of children from Primary 4 through Secondary 3 and their parents from Hong Kong conducted from November 2011 to January 2012. It confirms the often-cited result that happiness declines as the child moves into the teens, and finds that scores indicating Love, Insight, Fortitude, and Engagement, which reflect aspects of mental capital essential to happiness, also tend to decline during adolescence. Pressures from extracurricular activities surprisingly appear to have a greater adverse effect on happiness than pressures from school work. Siblings add to disharmony at home, and parents’ education does not …

Bootstrapping Statistical Inferences Of Decomposition Methods For Gender Earnings Differentials, Yue Ma, Ying Chu Ng

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

Applying the standard bootstrapping technique with corrections for heteroskedasticity for a sample of the 1997 Urban Household Survey in China, the present paper attempts to test (1) whether the commonly used decomposition methods for gender earnings differentials give significantly different results, and (2) whether the explained component is significantly different from the unexplained component (which is commonly referred to as discrimination) within each decomposition method. Based on a national data set, the empirical results indicated some significant differences in both tests. The implication of the results is that the proposed bootstrapping technique can be regarded as a guideline on applying …

Globalization, Unemployment, And Excess Capacity : A Model And A Conjecture, Lok Sang Ho

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

Using a theoretical model with an industrial world trading with a developing world and assuming no impediment to capital flows, it is shown that an abundant supply of unskilled labor will render real wages for the unskilled close to the subsistence level and will result in excess capacity. The rate of return for traditional manufacturing investment at the margin will decline so funds will seek to invest in financial assets and real property, boosting their prices. Under reasonable assumptions about the income elasticity and the price elasticity of demand for manufacturing products in rich and poor countries, it is shown …

Living Arrangements And Elderly Care : The Case Of Hong Kong, Rance P. L. Lee, Jik-Joen Lee, Elena S. H. Yu, Shang-Gong Sun, William T. Liu

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

Hong Kong has been a British Colony for more than one and a half centuries. The British has provided a legal-administrative framework under which the Chinese live and work (Chan and Lee, 1995), The Census showed that ninety-eight percent of the Territory's total population are ethnically Chinese. In 1991, nearly one half of HongKong's residents were immigrants from the Chinese Mainland and two thirds of the remaining were Hong Kong born off-springs of immigrants from the mainland. Although expatriotes from other countries are accountable for the remainder 2% of the population, a great majority of expatriotes are from overseas Chinese …

Income Protection And The Elderly : An Examination Of Social Security Policy In Singapore, Keng Mun, William Lee

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Positive Effects Of Modernization On Later Life, Wing Kin, Kenneth Law

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

Early gerontological theories (e.g., role theory, subculture theory, disengagement theory, activity theory and modernization theory) on the study of the elderly used to concentrate on the discussion of the effects of various kinds of social change on individuals' later life adaptation. Modernization has conventionally been perceived as a bad dream for most elderly people. It is the modernization which deskills them, devalues their experiences, take away their authority, ... and finally leaves them in misery.

The validity and applicability of this simple relationship between modernization and the misery of later life as a result of the decline of social status …

A Universal Fully-Funded Pension Scheme, Lok Sang Ho

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Social Inequality In Singapore : A Dual Economy Approach, Keng Mun, William Lee

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.