Aging in a tiger welfare regime: the single elderly in Hong Kong

This paper explores the coping strategies of the low income single elderly in Hong Kong, which are divided into several broad types: government-orientated (public services); market-orientated; community-orientated; and individually-orientated (practically speaking self restraint and denial). It highlights this group's reliance on the government, which not only provides housing, medical care and other services, but is also a major source of income support, although support levels are seriously inadequate. Yet the highly differentiated nature of Hong Kong's market economy provides single elders with ways to supplement inadequate public provision, by entering into low paid, menial work, and purchasing consumption necessities and accessing affordable housing in the informal sector--notably those segments of Hong Kong's increasingly sophisticated economy that are a throwback to leaner, meaner times. This case study also highlights the extent to which the community sector is undeveloped in Hong Kong. In spite of Hong Kong's wealth and level of economic development the prognosis for this group is not good.