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The pursuit of equitable education is key to a government's regulation and allocation of lifechances, which enables social integration. Yet, evidence of the diminishing returns of degrees and of the "skills mismatch" between higher education training and labour market requirements casts doubts on the role of higher educational institutions in facilitating social mobility. This paper draws upon the findings of 40 qualitative interviews with young people conducted in 2018 in Hong Kong to shed light on the micro-level processes in which higher education training is translated into graduate employment outcomes. Findings comparing two sets of higher education graduates' interview narratives are presented. Assumptions of the logic of human capital theory are questioned from the "positional" and the "processual" perspectives on graduate employability. The discussion unpacks the meanings of "skills mismatch" and "graduate employability," and foregrounds the assumptions of the differential values assigned to skills and knowledges of different kinds in the local higher education system. With the insights drawn, this paper concludes with a reflection on the relevance of higher education to our understanding of social mobility and social integration in post-Covid-19 Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research has explored Hong Kong's place branding, it focused on data prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and did not fully address the shifting geoeconomic and political contexts that define Hong Kong. The present paper aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive longitudinal analysis from 1997 to 2024. Applying discourse analysis on a corpus of official documents and policy addresses, our study uses a two-pronged framework that integrates place branding and critical juncture to comprehend the practices, politics, and consequences of Hong Kong's branding strategy. It argues that Hong Kong's current branding strategies are at a critical juncture, reflecting a devolution from an ambitious and holistic approach in the 2000s to consumption-driven promotional campaigns in the 2020s. The authors underscore the urgency and complexity of redefining a dynamic and adaptative branding strategy that can effectively showcase Hong Kong's strengths and values to the international community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As different classes of residential dwellings, government-subsidised Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) housing and unsubsidised private housing are aimed at adjacent groups of households on the housing ladder in Hong Kong. Subsidised housing is in high demand, and one important way of meeting it is to have better-endowed HOS families move up by buying into the private market. The paper explores the differences in price trends between these two classes of properties and attempts to find some of their determinants. Empirical analysis of historical prices of HOS and private housing reveals higher volatility in HOS prices and a differing trend with private market prices, as well as many more HOS transactions after the implementation of the White Form Secondary Market (WSM) Scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]