HKU survey urging stricter policy on welfare 'used biased sampling'
Biased samples were used in a survey commissioned by the Social Welfare Department to justify proposals to force more parents on welfare to work, a concern group claimed yesterday.
The Concerning CSSA Review Alliance said the 28 cases cited in the survey, which was carried out by University of Hong Kong researchers, must have been screened before being selected for the study because half of them had found work under a government job-finding programme for parents on the dole.
The actual job-finding rate under the New Dawn Project, launched in April last year, is 28 per cent, according to the concern group. The HKU survey was released last month.
The project requires single parents on the dole, whose youngest children are aged 12 to 14, to find jobs for at least 32 working hours a month. Those who refuse to join the programme - which provides them with job-seeking services - will have their Comprehensive Social Security Assistance welfare payment cut by HK$200 a month.
The HKU study has suggested lowering the age limit to six and increasing the penalty to HK$800 a month and the number of working hours to between 80 and 100.
'The survey said that it is easy for those who joined the programme to find jobs. But it is not true, as their sampling is biased,' said Au Yeung Tat-chor, the concern group's assistant community organiser.
A meeting of a Legislative Council panel has been scheduled today to address some of the issues raised in the survey.
The concern group is planning to stage a protest outside the council chambers.
A department spokeswoman said it had no plan to adopt the survey's proposals, at least for the time being, but would consider various aspects of the New Dawn Project in light of the findings.
Mr Au Yeung said that while it was true some countries had a lower age limit for children to compel parents receiving welfare to work, those programmes had good support and made sure the salaries were reasonable. He said New Dawn had no such support and people often ended up with poorly paid jobs.
Mr Au Yeung said social workers on the government project did not favour any of the proposals recommended by the HKU study.
He questioned why 21 of 28 people interviewed in the survey said it was realistic to increase the number of working hours to up to 60 per month.
Mr Au Yeung said people who could not work under the project would not do so even if the penalty was increased.
