Women still lag men in top job stakes
There is still a way to go for women's welfare in Hong Kong, say women's groups calling on the next chief executive to address gender inequality across Hong Kong society.
Women's Foundation chief executive Su-Mei Thompson said that despite Hong Kong's image as a shiny metropolis, many women were struggling to make ends meet.
'One in five people are living [around] the poverty line. When it comes to low-income families, women are particularly vulnerable - especially marginalised groups like new mainland arrivals, the elderly and single mothers,' Thompson said.
'Over 80 per cent of the working population earning less than HK$5,000 per month are women.'
While overrepresented among the city's poor, women are much harder to find among the higher echelons of business and government. A joint report by Standard Chartered Bank and NGO Community Business said only 9 per cent of board members of companies listed on the Hang Seng Index were women, and 41.7 per cent of companies on the Hang Seng had no women on their board.
There are just 29 women for every 100 men who own a businesses, and fewer than 50 women for every 100 men in government and top business positions, according to the Mastercard Worldwide Index of Women's Advancement.
On the flipside, Hong Kong does well in the education of women, with slightly more continuing into tertiary education than men.
The Mastercard Index also reveals there are 110.1 women for every 100 men in regular employment, bolstering an assessment by the Economist Intelligence Unit that Hong Kong does well in providing economic opportunities for women.
But women's groups maintain there is a lot to be done before the gender gap is closed, particularly in the realms of housework and pay.
Chau Chuen-heung, chairwoman of the Outlying Islands Women's Association, said the government should improve services to help working mothers care for their children, as well as organising more study programmes for women.
'Now they are relying only on NGOs to provide those services,' she said.
Zheng Zhen, president of the Kowloon Women's Organisations Federation, said that although the recent introduction of the minimum wage had helped some low-income women, the city still had much to do because wages were still generally lower than those for men.
She suggested that the next chief executive set up a committee under the chief secretary to cover women's issues.
As for the candidates' platforms, former Women's Commission chairwoman Sophia Kao Ching-chi said she was pleased with Leung Chun-ying's stance on women's issues, particularly his backing for paternity leave, childcare and more family-friendly services, which were in line with the commission's development goals. Kao is a supporter of Leung.
She added that pan-democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan's focus on gender equality was commendable and she hoped to see the same kind of commitment from the other candidate, Henry Tang Ying-yen.
