- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Time to Count the Social Cost of Uniting a People Divided
- 2 Setting the Scene
- 3 Supply and Demand Factors in Housing
- 4 On the Nature of Public Sector Housing Policies in Hong Kong
- 5 Comparing Public Sector Housing Policies in Hong Kong and Singapore
- 6 Equal Yet Unequal
- 7 The Inequity of Small Housing Units
- 8 Small Housing Units and High Property Prices
- 9 On Public Housing Policy and Social Justice
- 10 Economic and Social Consequences of Public Housing Policies
- 11 Demand for Homeownership and the Housing Ladder
- 12 How to Warm Up the HOS Secondary Market
- 13 Divorce, Remarriage, and the Long-Term Housing Strategy
- 14 Divorce, Inequality, Poverty, and the Vanishing Middle Class
- 15 The Impact of Global Economic Forces on Housing in Hong Kong
- 16 The Linked Rate, Domestic Stability, and Dual Integration
- 17 Reasons for Keeping the Linked Rate
- 18 Why Speculation Is Not a Bad Thing
- 19 Speculators, Property Agents, and the Spreading of Risk in the Presale Housing Market
- 20 How the Application List System Became the Winner’s Curse
- 21 Is There a High Land-Price Policy in Hong Kong?
- 22 Lima’s Other Path, Tsoi Yuen Village, and the Northeast New Territories
- 23 Stranded between Singapore’s Way and Lima’s Other Path
- 24 Subsidized Housing and Stability
- 25 Diversity and Occasional Anarchy
- 26 Population, Poverty, and the Triumph of the City
- 27 Eighty Percent Homeownership (Part 1)
- 28 Eighty Percent Homeownership (Part 2)
- 29 Conclusions and Reflections
- Epilogue
Divorce, Remarriage, and the Long-Term Housing Strategy
Divorce, Remarriage, and the Long-Term Housing Strategy
- Chapter:
- (p.91) 13 Divorce, Remarriage, and the Long-Term Housing Strategy
- Source:
- Hong Kong Land for Hong Kong People
- Author(s):
Yue Chim Richard Wong
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
The current public rental housing allocation criteria favor married couples but do not discriminate between first marriages and remarriages. Implicit in such allocation criteria is a positive incentive that subsidizes divorces and generates a penalty on children who inevitably suffer from broken families. The growing numbers of divorced women living in public rental housing units imply a rising number of children growing up in broken families in public rental housing estates. This is not conducive to upward social mobility but sets the stage for the production of a new underclass that perpetuates intergenerational inequality. A housing strategy is not merely about how many housing units to build. It is also about what kind of society we will be encouraging through policies that influence household allocation choices. It is important that we think through more clearly and examine more carefully what is at stake. Errors in policy will haunt many future generations.
Keywords: Hong Kong, Housing, Housing policy, Public Housing, Politics, Social mobility, Population, Economics, Growth
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Time to Count the Social Cost of Uniting a People Divided
- 2 Setting the Scene
- 3 Supply and Demand Factors in Housing
- 4 On the Nature of Public Sector Housing Policies in Hong Kong
- 5 Comparing Public Sector Housing Policies in Hong Kong and Singapore
- 6 Equal Yet Unequal
- 7 The Inequity of Small Housing Units
- 8 Small Housing Units and High Property Prices
- 9 On Public Housing Policy and Social Justice
- 10 Economic and Social Consequences of Public Housing Policies
- 11 Demand for Homeownership and the Housing Ladder
- 12 How to Warm Up the HOS Secondary Market
- 13 Divorce, Remarriage, and the Long-Term Housing Strategy
- 14 Divorce, Inequality, Poverty, and the Vanishing Middle Class
- 15 The Impact of Global Economic Forces on Housing in Hong Kong
- 16 The Linked Rate, Domestic Stability, and Dual Integration
- 17 Reasons for Keeping the Linked Rate
- 18 Why Speculation Is Not a Bad Thing
- 19 Speculators, Property Agents, and the Spreading of Risk in the Presale Housing Market
- 20 How the Application List System Became the Winner’s Curse
- 21 Is There a High Land-Price Policy in Hong Kong?
- 22 Lima’s Other Path, Tsoi Yuen Village, and the Northeast New Territories
- 23 Stranded between Singapore’s Way and Lima’s Other Path
- 24 Subsidized Housing and Stability
- 25 Diversity and Occasional Anarchy
- 26 Population, Poverty, and the Triumph of the City
- 27 Eighty Percent Homeownership (Part 1)
- 28 Eighty Percent Homeownership (Part 2)
- 29 Conclusions and Reflections
- Epilogue
