Researches
Hong Kong is home to more than 600,000 ethnic minorities, constituting 8.4% of the total population in 2021. However, our community has yet been as inclusive as it should be for them to enjoy equal opportunities, resources and support for a better wellbeing.
The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS) has launched a few research initiatives, organized engagement activities and published research report since 2021. These efforts are expected to draw a better understanding towards the living situation and needs of the EM community in various aspects. And more importantly, it is expected to provide evidence for various stakeholders to embark on discussion and take actions for building an inclusive and diverse society of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong inclusion and Diversity (HKiD) Index
To develop a systematic tool for tracking local social development and overall assessment of needs in social inclusion and diversity on a regional level, the Council initiated the construction of a Hong Kong inclusion and Diversity (HKiD) Index for the advocacy of a socially inclusive society.
Since 2021, a long process of stakeholders engagement was held to build a social intelligible and relevant framework and a list of constitutive indicators of the Index. A series of focus group and a town hall forum were conducted to engage stakeholders who concern about social inclusion and diversity and collect public opinion on the Index's framework. An Expert Group with multiple stakeholders concerning EM was also formed to steer the Index construction process.
Through these concerted efforts by various stakeholders and the research team, an Index was constructed based on a life domain framework. 7 life domains are identified, including 6 coming from the engagement process (Education, Employment, Health, Housing, Social and Political Participation, Culture and Diversity), 1 from the Expert Group of the HKiD Index (Social Service). They are believed to be the most important life domains of all people in Hong Kong, and the EM community should also be enjoying the same level of life in these domains if they are enjoying inclusion. A total of 69 objective indicators are included to assess the overall inclusion and diversity situation in these life domains.
Based on this framework, the research team approached over 40 government bureaus, public organisations and universities for obtaining secondary data of the objective indicators during the 1st & 2nd quarters of 2023.
Despite the unavailability of most data, HKiD may still be able to provide a more comprehensive view on the living situation of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, especially in Employment, Education, Health and Housing. Part of the research findings were included in “In Numbers, Stories and Their Voices: Calling of the Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong”. We hope that these findings could raise public awareness on the importance of enhancing understanding towards ethnic minority population in Hong Kong.
Community Survey in Yuen Long & Kwai Tsing
In the district level, community survey was conducted to assess the social inclusion in the local community in different life domains (Education, Employment, Health, Housing, Religious, Social and Political Participation) and to identify the needs of EM. With helps from the local partners (Yuen Long Town Hall and H.K.S.K.H. Lady MacLehose Centre) and by applying snowballing method, survey interviews with 213 Chinese and 200 non-Chinese in the Yuen Long and Kwai Tsing districts were collected in the 1st – 3rd quarters of 2022. All the respondents were 15 years of age or above, a Hong Kong resident and were living, working or studying in Kwai Tsing or Yuen Long.
EM participants were interviewed with the assistance of EM youth leaders from the 2 district service providers. They were trained in research before launching the survey, and they would use EM languages to conduct the survey when necessary.
Respondents were interviewed to answer a questionnaire covering difficulties in life, help seeking, social association and network and social participation. They were also asked to rate their difficulties, sufficiency of choice in service and support, and availability of service and support in different life domains now and in ten years.
The research findings provided insights into the differences and similarities of community life between Chinese and non-Chinese in the two districts. Part of the research findings were included in “In Numbers, Stories and Their Voices: Calling of the Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong”.
Audit Diary
In attempt to draw in-depth understanding into the EM's real-life experience when encountering, interacting and making claims with public authority in Hong Kong, the research team developed an “audit diary” approach with reference to the similar “governance diaries” research method[1]. Questionnaires are designed to record and investigate the quantity and quality of inclusion measures in public service, the experience of EMs in using public service, as well as their feeling during and after the process.
In the pilot phrase, 8 EM informants from around Hong Kong were referred by social organisations or district councilor during the 1st - 2nd quarters of 2023. They are interviewed to share their recent encounter with public service providers in two selected life domains: Health and Education. In the Health domain, the team focuses on EM patients' experience in visiting public hospitals or clinics, the problems they came across in the process and what their solutions were. For Education domain, informants' knowledge on Hong Kong education system and their journey through the Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA) System with their children or siblings were concerned.
From the informants, the research team heard not only stories about grievances against the healthcare system and remorse for making a mistake in selecting secondary school, but also tacit knowledge to survive the system by seeking help from neighbourhood and association network to support one another. The informants have also shared with the research team about their good experiences in the system, including meeting a helpful doctor or being provided with useful information. Through these stories, the team were thus able to identify service gaps and information gaps which can hardly be reflected by official data.
The questionnaires for audit diary research can be found here:
[1] Governance diaries is first developed by a group of development researchers who works on empowerment, accountability and state-citizen relationship, especially in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings (FCVAS) (Loureiro, Joshi, Barnes & Chaimite 2020). The method was inspired by the book Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day (Collins et al, 2009), where the authors and researchers looked into the financial record of poor households in order to understand poverty in different landscape and perspectives.