Childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover: Beyond a feminist critique

Abstract

AbstractThis article reviews the development of childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover, gauging it with two standards: promoting the equal development of children and gender equality in our society. Statistics derived from data taken from multiple sources show that the government has been sticking to a “positive non‐intervention approach” to welfare development and that the male breadwinner/female carer model prevalent in this region was shaped and strengthened by current childcare policies and services. The current provision of childcare services is insufficient to guarantee the equal use of childcare among children of different socioeconomic backgrounds, or to ease the tension between the needs of childcare and job requirements in a family, or to emancipate married women from the domestic sphere. A “generative welfare approach” that collects fiscal resources and redistributes them strategically with a systemic mind‐set has been suggested for social policy and service planning, including spending the money in the right place, launching smart and practical policies that can achieve both pragmatic effects and ideological improvement in the area of gender equality, providing financial support or subsidies to a company for the provision of parental leave, and increasing the provision of quality childcare services.