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Influence of Government Policies and Individual Decisions on the Commuting of Poor Workers in Hong Kong

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Self-Organization and Mobility Deprivation of Poor Workers in Hong Kong and Singapore

Part of the book series: Quality of Life in Asia ((QLAS,volume 18))

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Abstract

The Hong Kong government adopts laissez-faire policies on urban renewal, suburbanization, education, and industrial relations, while actively intervening in the housing markets; it limits the land supply for housing, excluding the majority of the population from applying for public housing and adopting a rail-plus-property model to boost land prices. Transport studies usually use socioeconomic variables to predict travel demand, but this study uses the self-organization approach to explain the commuting patterns produced by the interaction between policies and individual actions. Drawing on data from the 2011 Hong Kong TCS, this study finds that the policies contribute to causing poverty, social and spatial segregation, and accessibility constraints of poor workers. Accessibility problems produce an imbalanced social environment. Since people want fair governance, implementing fair governance is the main motivation for the Hong Kong government to amend the policies to return the social system to a balanced state and improve the commuting of low-income workers.

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  1. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Joseph Cho-Yam Lau

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Cho-Yam Lau, J. (2023). Influence of Government Policies and Individual Decisions on the Commuting of Poor Workers in Hong Kong. In: Self-Organization and Mobility Deprivation of Poor Workers in Hong Kong and Singapore. Quality of Life in Asia, vol 18. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7265-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7265-4_2

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-7265-4

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