Hong Kong has been ranked by the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Study as the world's least affordable housing market for 2019 - for the 10th consecutive year. A household would need to save up for 20.8 years to afford a home. Inadequate housing has led to the proliferation of subdivided units and soaring demand for public housing which is in short supply due to the lack of developable land. This dialogue looks at the curx of the housing, land and planning issues and explores policy and institutional possibilities on the way forward. Lessons will be drawn from the experience of Singapore which is world-renowned for its successful national housing policy.
Hong Kong is a city that is no stranger to protests. However, what began as peaceful rallies in May-June 2019 against the extradition amendment bill had quickly turned into incessant political confrontations that brought the city to the verge of violent polarization and breakdown never seen before, triggering the central government's imposition of national security law in July 2020. Hong Kong's future is now changed forever. A key player turning Hong Kong into a 'rebel city' is the young generation who feel politically discontented and socially dispossessed. This dialogue seeks to understand their fury by exploring their aspirations, frustrations, mobility anxieties and identity politics.
Ms Vivien Foong Yee Tang, a student of the Master of Public Policy and Management Program (MPPM) at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), recently published a paper in Health Policy, one of the leading international journals in the field. Entitled “Integration of health services for the elderly in Asia: a scoping review of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia”, this paper is coauthored with Dr Alex Jingwei He, Associate Professor of the Department of Asian and Policy Studies of the EdUHK. This publication arises from a research project funded by the Asia-Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies of the World Health Organization. Ms Tang has been participating in this project as a Research Assistant since 2020.
With a five-year impact factor of 2.707, Health Policy currently stands at Quartile 2 in the health policy and services category of the renowned Social Science Citations Index (SSCI). This paper also marks the third SSCI publication by the MPPM students, a marvelous achievement for students of a taught degree program. “Our MPPM program strives to provide dynamic and solid soil for bright master students to engage in cutting-edge policy research. Our faculty members generously offer research opportunities to motivated students and are keen to prepare them for professional career in not only public sector organizations but also research institutions”, Dr He remarked.
Publication records of MPPM students
- Tang, Foong Yee Vivien (MPPM 2020), Integration of health services for the elderly in Asia: a scoping review of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia. Health Policy (SSCI Q2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.12.020 (with Dr Alex Jingwei He).
- Yin, Jason Dean-chen (MPPM 2018), The medical arms race and its impact in Chinese hospitals: implications for health regulation and planning. Health Policy and Planning (SSCI Q1), https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czz001 (with Dr Alex Jingwei He and Dr Jiwei Qian).
- Yin, Jason Dean-chen (MPPM 2018), Health insurance reforms in Singapore and Hong Kong: how the two ageing Asian tigers response to health financing challenges? Health Policy (SSCI Q2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2018.04.012 (with Dr Alex Jingwei He).
- 吳玉潔 (MPPM 2019), 研究選題與方法：2020年第二季度公共管理研究佳作評介，《公共管理評論》(CSSCI), https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/10.1653.D0.20200901.1719.004.html (與肖漢宇 博士合作).
A current student of the Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM), Mr Nantapong Butakhieo has co-authored an article with Dr Lina Vyas, who is the Programme Leader of MPPM. The article is titled “The impact of working from home during COVID-19 on work and life domains: an exploratory study on Hong Kong”. The research paper argues that the pandemic has caused most if not all workers, to have experienced work from home (WFH). This situation provides unique insight into how well WFH works and may play a vital role in future policies that reshape the current arrangement of working hours, possibly allowing more flexibility. The article uses an exploratory framework and SWOT analysis to investigate the continuing experience the employers and employees face in Hong Kong. The following is a fine compilation of the article. The article can be found at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2020.1863560?scroll=top&needAccess=true.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19), a pandemic sweeping across the globe, has challenged society in ways once considered unimaginable, forcing people to reconsider a wide variety of practices, from work, to leisure, to basic travel and daily tasks. Not only has this had individual impacts, but it has also impacted countries as a whole from an economic standpoint, bringing an array of economic sectors to a complete standstill. While there was a lot anticipated and there were countless warnings, especially from those working in public health, the challenge remained as a substantial change which requires planning, training and facilitating. While the society did mentally prepare, the extent and solution remained unthinkable and remains to be a big challenge.
Hong Kong, like most places, has long been following a standard practice to work in a formal office environment, where 85% of surveyed Hong Kong employees reported that they are required to work at the office during regular office hours with no flexible working options being offered. Thus, before the pandemic, the idea of WFH was a fantasy to many people, but such practice was considered not practicable for heavily populated cities like Hong Kong. This is principally because home working requires a quiet and dedicated space to perform work duties, which can be a real challenge for those living in tiny homes. Hong Kong is undoubtedly famous for having tiny homes, in which the average living space per person was only 161 sq ft. in 2018 (Task Force on Land Supply 2018), which is about 25% lower than Tokyo and 60% lower than Singapore (Ng 2018). Over the years, there has been a belief throughout the city that workers need to be physically present in the office to carry out the job. Now that the pandemic has forced a trial run for WFH in the city, for many, it is their first time to work remotely and to a large extent it is proving to be successful. Therefore, a unique opportunity to assess the possibility of having WFH as one of the future working models for such a densely populated city has high impact. Being one of the first studies in this area, to this research analyses three different dimensions. Firstly, this study attempts to enhance the understanding of WFH, including the factors that influence WFH and the practicality and effectiveness of this work arrangement. Secondly, the scrutiny of the WFH’s potential outcomes on workers’ work and life domains, such as flexibility and work motivation. Finally, our investigation in the context of Hong Kong adds distinctions to the record of Hong Kong’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, which is substantially believed to be victorious due to strong “community capacity” or social mobilization (Hartley and Jarvis 2020; Wan et al. 2020). The research highlights the COVID-19 pandemic and WFH in Hong Kong, with attention to WFH arrangements during the epidemic in Hong Kong. The paper concludes by presenting the policy implications and recommendations which include a series of possible actions that could be taken by the Government to make WFH more feasible in a local context.
Congratulations to Chair Prof Stephen Y.L. CHEUNG, Chair Prof CHOU Kee-lee and Prof WOO Chi-keung, who have been included in November 2020 by the Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% of scientists.
Professor CHEUNG is ranked 194 out of 9,626 scientists in the field of Finance, with a C Score of 3.35 (composite indicator for career-long impact). Professor Cheung is highly active in academic research, focusing on corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and financial market development, and publishes widely in international refereed journals, and until 2019, he has published 74 papers.
Professor CHOU is ranked 69 out of 9,241 scientists in the field of Geriatrics, with a C Score of 3.86. Prof CHOU has published over 160 papers in areas of geriatric psychiatry, elderly policies, population policy, immigrant policy, poverty, welfare reform, income inequality, and health policy. He has conducted numerous policy research projects funded by the Research Grant Council (RGC) and the Central Policy Unit (Predecessor of Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office) of The HKSAR government.
Prof WOO Chi-keung is ranked 1,452 out of over 186,000 scientists in the field of Energy, with a C Score of 3.38 that reflects his widely cited papers on energy economics and the electricity industry. With over 170 refereed publications, he has won a General Research Fund project, a Teaching Development Grant, a Public Policy Research project, five faculty research prizes, and a gold medal for Online Assessment System for Individual Scores (OASIS) in the International Innovation and Invention Competition (IIIC) Taiwan 2020.
APS looks forward to seeing our faculty members’ research output that helps shape public policies for the future.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/3auNhRR