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This paper examines how individuals use their labour supply-hours of work and participation decisions-as a margin of adjustment or 'buffer' in response to financial shocks. The financial shock measure is constructed using individuals' expected change to their financial situation in the year ahead relative to the perceived outcome one year later. Using BHPS data, we find that both men and women adjust their labour supply in response to financial shocks. The propensity to participate in the labour market also appears to respond to the experience of a financial shock, but is less robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how the availability of affordable live-in help provided by foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong affected native women's labor supply and welfare. First, we exploit differences in the FDW program between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Second, we use cross-sectional variation in the cost of a FDW to estimate a model of labor force participation and FDW hire. FDWs increased the participation of mothers with a young child (relative to older children) by 10-14 percentage points and have generated a monthly consumer surplus of US$130-US$200. By reducing child care costs through immigration, this is a market-based alternative to child care subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better manage and forecast the demand for labor in the construction industry, a mathematical model is developed using a distributed lag model and labor multiplier approach. The model is tested using economic statistics and manpower data derived from Hong Kong construction projects. The model can be used by public and private sectors to forecast future labor demand so that an optimal workforce can be attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry-specific human capital reduces the incentive for older workers to leave declining industries and raises the incentive for younger workers to join growing industries. Using the industry restructuring experience of Hong Kong, we find that a 1% increase in employment share of an industry is associated with a 0.60-year decrease in the average age of its workforce. The relationship is more pronounced among less educated workers, who have less general human capital, and male workers, who are more committed to the labor force, than among well educated workers and female workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the labor force participation of married women in Hong Kong, China. The study shows that the labor force participation of married women were both an ideological and a resource issues. The labor force participation of women was associated with the coexistence of a higher education level and a nontraditional gender role. The traditional and nontraditional women differed in their perspective on childcare support. Women chose to work when their family require financial support and they also chose to stay at home to take care of the family if the financial situation allows.

Abstract. This article discusses the controversies surrounding the issue of labour importation, and then describes the development of the various labour importation schemes introduced over the years as well as its institutional arrangements and its gaps. The managerial implications of labour importation are examined, using the case study approach. Empirical evidence from the case studies show that labour importation could be a very resourceful input to organizational performance, but the contributions of import workers are limited by institutional factors. Because of these man-made rigidities and inflexibilities, management makes little attempt to integrate the imported workers into the mainstream labour force. They are confined to the role of "peripheral" workers, but it is not because of any inherent disabilities. Rather it is due to employers' response to social and political demands to marginalize the imported workers so as to prevent them from undercutting the local work force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study which cites the improvement of educational system in Hong Kong, China. It has cited that from 1950s to the 1970s economic development relied on an unskilled labor force for which proficiency in English was not a requirement. It was in 1971 that universal primary education was introducer and junior secondary education became universal only in 1978. The majority of the primary and secondary teaching body was educated in two-year college of education certificate programs. And those degree holders entering the teaching profession were able to do so without any formal teacher education.

This paper uses a case study of Hong Kong and Singapore, two of the fastest growing economies in the postwar world, to evaluate competing theories of economic growth. Although broadly similar in historical background and economic structure, the two economies are strikingly different along three dimensions of interest to growth theorists: (1) Hong Kong began the postwar era with a considerably better educated labor force; (2) the subsequent accumulation of human and physical capital in Singapore far exceeds that in Hong Kong; and (3) Singapore has experienced considerably more rapid structural change, as government targeting policies have propelled the economy into technologically advanced sectors. A total factor productivity growth analysis of the two economies reveals that while TFP growth in Hong Kong accounts for over two-thirds of the increase in GDP per capita during the 1970s and 1980s, total factor productivity growth in Singapore during the same period is next to nil. These results constitute strong evidence against linear models of growth that emphasize contemporaneous externalities in the accumulation of factors of production. The poor TFP performance of the Singaporean economy, when associated with its astounding rate of structural transformation, supports models that emphasize the constraints imposed by learning by doing on the evolution of comparative advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of employment outside the home on the family hierarchy in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong in 1976, focusing on working daughters. Proportion of labor force in England and the U.S.; Factors that contribute to a high proportion of female-headed households; Ratio of wage earners to family dependents from 1960 to 1974.

The article focuses on the benefits of the growing pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in Hong Kong, China for Chinese scientists. These developments in the industry increase the return of Chinese scientists who are training abroad, such as the U.S. According to Scott Wadsworth, researcher at Johnson & Johnson Research & Development, their knowledge in the language and culture allows them to obtain higher positions. The main factor driving growth in biotechnology-based industry is the demand for low-cost labor.