https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8302-2445
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Abstract
We explored how the three major trends evident in the labor market since the 1970s (narrowing gender inequality, increased enrollment in higher education, occupational inequality) are related to income differences between the baby boom and millennial generations in Hong Kong, a major city in East Asia. We have incorporated analysis that examines the differences between local-born individuals and migrants in order to highlight a significant feature of Hong Kong society. Using the Hong Kong census for 1991 and 2016, we showed that from 1991 to 2016, the income gap between local-born Chinese and migrants widened substantially between millennials and baby boomers. RIF regression analysis and the decomposition based on the RIF regression results show that the three major social trends are related to the incomes of young adult baby boomers and millennials in Hong Kong in different ways. These patterns also vary by high and lower-income groups.
Notes
1 Since 1978, Hong Kong has provided free education for the first 9 years of school, i.e., until the third form of secondary school. Therefore, we categorize the first educational level in our study as lower secondary school or below.
2 In 1991 census data, the categories of “widowed” and “divorced/separated” comprise 0.1% and 1.1%, respectively, for the age group of 28 to 32. In 2016 census data, the categories of “widowed” and “divorced/separated” comprise 0.2% and 2%, respectively, in the same age group. Because of the small proportions, we have combined the two categories into one: “divorced/separated/widowed.”
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Notes on contributors
Pui Kwan Man
Pui Kwan Man is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University and a Centre Fellow in the Centre for Criminology at the University of Hong Kong. She obtained her PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include sociology of crime and deviance, gambling disorder, addictive behaviors, gender, family and marriage, income difference, migration and well-being. Her work has been published in Journal of Gambling Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Population Research and Policy Review, Asian Population Studies, and Asian and Pacific Migration Journal.
Eric Fong
Eric Fong is Chair Professor of Sociology and the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Hong Kong. Fong publishes widely in the areas of migration and race and ethnicity. His recent book with Kumiko Shibuya and Brent Berry, entitled Segregation, was published by Polity Press. He is now working on a book manuscript about migrant domestic workers and their adaptation patterns.