Ordinary households have failed to benefit from economic growth in recent years, while the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Those were some of the recent findings from the Bauhinia Foundation, a think-tank close to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen.
It revealed that the median household income in 2005 was still 15.8 per cent lower than that in the previous peak year of 1997. More serious still, between 1996 and 2005, the number of households with a monthly income below HK$8,000 rose by 76.5 per cent, to more than 500,000; and their proportion of the total number of households rose from 13 per cent to 22 per cent.
Earlier, a survey by the Democratic Party found that 70 per cent of respondents reported their quality of life showed no obvious improvement compared with that a decade ago; and 34 per cent of them considered it has worsened. The survey also showed that 35 per cent considered the government represented the interests of big business and neglected the middle class. Similar situations are reported from Japan and Taiwan.
Kenichi Ohmae's book, The Impact of Rising Lower-Middle Class Population in Japan: What Can We Do About It?, is a best-seller in Japan, and has generated much discussion in Taiwan, as well. Dr Ohmae considers that a vast majority of Japanese will fall into the lower-middle class socio-economic group because globalisation will lead to further widening of the gap between rich and poor, and exacerbate social polarisation.
Perhaps Hong Kong's new graduates can most easily associate with Dr Ohmae's arguments. A sociology professor told me this true story about three years ago, when Hong Kong's economy had hit rock bottom. He was talking to some new graduates, and when he addressed them as the young middle class, one students said he did not feel like they belonged to the middle class.
The economy today is, of course, better. But the median monthly salary of new graduates is between HK$10,000 and HK$11,000; many also owe the government HK$200,000 or so in student loans. Unless they can depend on their parents for food and accommodation, they will hardly be able to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Neither can they expect promotion and salary increases.