Title: Hok Bun KU
1Racism and Social Inequality Work and Employment
of South Asian Ethnic Minority in Hong Kong
- Hok Bun KU Kam Wah CHAN
- Department of Applied Social Sciences
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
2Introduction
- According to the 2001 official population census,
ethnic minorities constituted 5.1 per cent of the
Hong Kong population with a total of 343,950.
Among them, the population of South and Southeast
Asians, including Pakistanis, Indians, Nepalese,
Filipinos, Indonesians and Thais, was 249,516
(Census and Statistics Department, 2002).
3- Discrimination against South Asian people is
largely unarticulated and undocumented in Hong
Kong. - Making people invisible is one way of
marginalizing and socially excluding them. - In 2002 we started a pilot study about the life
situation of Pakistanis in Hong Kong and then in
2004 funded by the CERG Grant we continued
another bigger project titled Ethnicity and
Social Exclusion A Study on the Life Situation
of South Asian Ethnic Minority in Hong Kong
4- It aims to understand the situation of South
Asian ethnic minority groups through their hidden
voices and to see what social forces contribute
to the social exclusion of ethnic minority
groups, as well as to understand how their racial
and ethnic identities make their position
vulnerable in areas such as education,
employment, housing, health and social services. - We also hope to make the finding reach to the
policy makers and helps them reformulate the law
to outlaw racial discrimination and design
services more favorable to the ethnic minority. - The paper focuses on the employment issues
concerning South Asian ethnic minority groups in
Hong Kong, namely the Filipinos, Indians,
Nepalese and Pakistanis.
5Race/Ethnicity and Social Exclusion in Hong Kong
- In recent years, social exclusion has been one of
the important themes in policy debates in Western
societies - It has also replaced the underclass in
discussions about the poor in post-industrial
society. - Social exclusion means much more than poverty
because many exclusions and inequalities are
embedded in everyday social interactions, social
practices and social discourse.
6- It involves not just the lack of material
resources but also a multi-dimensional process in
which various forms of exclusion are combined
participation in decision making and the
political process, access to employment and
material resources, and integration into common
cultural processes. - There is a close relation between ethnicity and
social exclusion.
7- Numerous surveys by academics, the press, and
other NGOs provide incontrovertible evidence that
racist attitudes lie very deep and racial
discrimination is a serious problem in Hong Kong - We do hope via this paper, South Asian ethnic
minorities voices can be heard by the government
and the public
8Employment Situation of South Asian Ethnic
Minorities in Hong Kong
Table 6 Employment Status
9(No Transcript)
10- Racial Labor Market Segmentation
11Table 7 Occupation and Ethnic Origin
12(No Transcript)
13Table 8 Working hours per week
14Table 9 Average monthly income
15Table 10 Means of getting current job
Note The respondent may write more than one
career chances. Total Number of Respondent 190
16Table 11. Difficulties in searching for a job in
Hong Kong
17Table 12 Time spent to find the current job
18Table 13. Problems at workplace in Hong Kong
19 Color Still Matters
- Racial Bias and Discrimination in job searching
and at Workplace - Unequal treatment at the workplace
- Unrecognized educational qualifications
20South Asian Peoples Narratives
- Even in the newspaper recruitment ad, the
requirement is not Chinese. It is an English
company. Still, if you phone them for an
interview, and they come to know that youre a
Pakistani, your nationality, they will just not
call you. They wont bother. They wont even
bother to give you some time. Theyll just say,
Okay, well call you or something like that.
And then just finish! At this point they dont
even ask you if you know Cantonese or
notConcerning Hong Kong environment and the
culture, they still think that Chinese will be
more adapted to the kind of society.
21- Sometimes I look for jobs in Recruit. When I
called them, they asked about my qualifications.
After that, they asked me, Whore you? Are you a
Chinese? I answered that my nationality is
Pakistani. Then, they said, Sorry, you cant.
22- I think this is a show the language barrier
we can call it a show. It is played in the hands
of the government, non-government organizations
and other firms. Whenever a South Asian who cant
read or write Chinese and goes to any firms to
apply for jobs, straightly the first question is,
Do you know how to read and write Chinese?
Sorry. This is the show that everybody is using
on everybody. Ive seen many advertisements that
state good English, better job opportunities.
Where are the job opportunities? Any person who
speaks English, you use the Chinese show. And you
give the job to the one whom you want. To whom
you want to give it, you give it!
23- Religion matters toothe kindergarten was
affiliated with a church. The person frankly told
me, Were afraid that you may teach your
religion to our children. I said, Why will I do
so? Exclaimed sadly. Though I had kindergarten
teaching experience, its in his mind that maybe
I would teach them my religion. I see a lot of
Christians preaching on streets. Some even came
to our doorsteps and offered us books and things.
Weve never had these things. Theyre doing that,
fine, no problem. But why did he think Id do the
same? This is a barrier.
24Conclusion
- A sense of exclusion is common for our
respondents. - racism operates subtly and constitutes inequality
in work and employment among South Asian people
in Hong Kong. - Their life experiences in Hong Kong are shaped by
discrimination, racism and differential or
preferential treatment. - Racial labour market segmentation is the obvious
pattern in Hong Kong. - While language and credential are two of the main
problems the ethnic minorities faced in job
search or at work, racial discrimination is
another significant factor. - Racial discrimination in the labour market was
overwhelming, and it led to unequal treatments
suffered by the ethnic minorities. - Comparing to their local Chinese counterpart, the
ethnic minorities received unequal/lower pay,
less promotion opportunity, more workload, less
job safety, higher chances of being laid off,
less working benefits and are at times rejected
because of cultural and/or religious practices.