Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Centre for Demographic Research, Catholic University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Feb 18;17(4):1305. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17041305.
Providing social security to the population in need has become a major expenditure for many governments. Reducing the number of dependents in the social security system and maintaining a dynamic economically active population is a high priority concern for policymakers. A good understanding of the dynamics of the social security system-specifically, who enters and who exits the system-would be helpful for formulating effective interventions. Here, we made use of the data of Hong Kong's Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), which is currently a basic welfare scheme in Hong Kong that provides supplementary payments to households that cannot support themselves financially. We proposed a stochastic model to examine the in- and out- movement in the CSSA scheme and conducted elasticity analyses. The elasticity analyses allowed us to identify the potential target groups of people that would lead to the largest reduction in the number of the CSSA recipients in the system. This analytical method can also reveal whether policies would be more effective in preventing people from entering the CSSA system or helping them leave the CSSA scheme. Our analyses suggest that targeting those aged 30-49 with children would have the largest impact. Additionally, we found that policies that aim to prevent this group from entering the CSSA system would be more effective in reducing the number of CSSA recipients compared with policies that aim to help them exit. In contrast, for the younger age group of 10-29, policies that help them leave CSSA would be more effective than policies that prevent them from entering CSSA. Providing employment for those unemployed in this younger group would be more effective. The results indicate that by tailoring measures to specific subgroups, the overall number of CSSA recipients would be reduced, thereby improving the efficiency of Hong Kong's social security system, which has accounted for more than 16.5% of Hong Kong government expenditure in 2018, amounting to more than HKD 92 billion.
为有需要的民众提供社会保障已成为许多政府的一项主要支出。减少社会保障体系中的受抚养人数并保持充满活力的经济活动人口，是政策制定者的当务之急。深入了解社会保障体系的动态——特别是谁进入该体系，谁退出该体系——将有助于制定有效的干预措施。在这里，我们利用了香港综合社会保障援助（CSSA）的数据，该计划目前是香港的一项基本福利计划，为无法在经济上自给自足的家庭提供补充款项。我们提出了一个随机模型来研究 CSSA 计划中的进入和退出动态，并进行了弹性分析。弹性分析使我们能够确定可能导致 CSSA 计划中受助人数量最大减少的潜在目标人群。这种分析方法还可以揭示政策在防止人们进入 CSSA 系统或帮助他们离开 CSSA 计划方面是否更有效。我们的分析表明，针对有子女的 30-49 岁人群将产生最大影响。此外，我们发现，旨在防止该人群进入 CSSA 系统的政策，与旨在帮助他们离开 CSSA 计划的政策相比，将更有效地减少 CSSA 受助人的数量。相比之下，对于年龄在 10-29 岁的年轻人群体，帮助他们离开 CSSA 的政策将比防止他们进入 CSSA 的政策更有效。为该年轻群体中失业的人提供就业机会将更有效。结果表明，通过针对特定亚组制定措施，可以减少 CSSA 受助人的总数，从而提高香港社会保障体系的效率。该体系在 2018 年占香港政府支出的 16.5%以上，达到 920 多亿港元。
