Family breakdown, poverty and discontent in public housing
In the past 30 years, the socio-economic divide between low-income and high-income households has grown progressively wider
Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 shows how class divisions there have vastly widened. College graduates in high-skilled occupations are not just doing well economically; they stay married and continue to be industrious, honest, and religious. The working class, in contrast, has fallen apart. Never mind their stagnant wages; they have almost completely lost touch with how to live successful, meaningful lives. The consequence for intergenerational poverty is ominous to say the least.
What is powerful about Murray’s thesis is the unusually high degree of family breakdowns associated with the origin and intergenerational transmission of poverty among unskilled, low-income families. Their children suffer and end up in poverty themselves.
This finding has important parallels in Hong Kong. In the past 30 years, the socio-economic divide between low-income and high-income households has grown progressively wider, exacerbated by rising property prices. This is fuelling polarisation and political discontent, and it is being driven by the rising incidence of family breakdown, which is affecting low-income households the most.
Contributing to this process has been China’s opening and Hong Kong’s public rental housing policies. The former has resulted in an increase in cross-border marriages (including remarriages) that have accelerated family breakdowns among low-income local households.
For these children, Hong Kong’s prosperity and China’s emergence is not a source of pride, but of alienation
The latter has led to the concentration of low-income families, including both broken local families and intact recent immigrant families, in public rental housing units, many of which are located in the more remote areas of Hong Kong. In contrast are the high-priced private housing areas located closer to the heart of the city.
The scale of cross-border marriages (including remarriages) is staggering. From 1986 to 2014 there was a cumulative total of 680,017 cross-border marriages, constituting 40.3 per cent of all marriages. The cumulative total for cross-border remarriages from 1986 to 2012 was 107,796, constituting 43.0 per cent of all remarriages.