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Hok Bun KU

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Title: Hok Bun KU


1

Racism 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

2
Introduction
  • 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.

5
Race/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

8
Employment Situation of South Asian Ethnic
Minorities in Hong Kong
Table 6 Employment Status
9
(No Transcript)
10
  • Racial Labor Market Segmentation

11
Table 7 Occupation and Ethnic Origin
12
(No Transcript)
13
Table 8 Working hours per week
14
Table 9 Average monthly income
15
Table 10 Means of getting current job
Note The respondent may write more than one
career chances. Total Number of Respondent 190
16
Table 11. Difficulties in searching for a job in
Hong Kong
17
Table 12 Time spent to find the current job
18
Table 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

20
South 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.

24
Conclusion
  • 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.
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