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This article focuses on children’s social quality. Social quality can be understood as the extent to which people can engage in the social, economic, and cultural lives of their communities, under conditions that strengthen their well-being and potential. This article has two purposes. The first is to develop a league table ranking 23 countries’ children’s social quality based on comparative data. The second is to examine the correlation between these countries' commitment to promoting children’s social quality and reducing the child care gap, where childcare is insufficiently covered by child care leave or Early Childhood Education and Care.

We analyse the findings obtained from the children’s social quality league table and the child care gap league table for the 23 countries.

The findings reveal mixed relationships between the children’s social quality league table and the child care gap league table. These findings indicate that we cannot assume that countries prioritizing the reduction of the child care gap automatically possess the capacity or willingness to promote other aspects of children’s welfare. They also highlight the significance of encouraging countries to enhance their children’s social quality as a way to promote children’s welfare rather than solely reducing the child care gap.

Children’s social quality is a new research area. To explore it, this article makes an innovative attempt by exploring the connection between social quality, children’s welfare, and the child care gap. The league table of children’s social quality this article developed is the first of its kind.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the difficulties faced by women with same-sex desire (commonly known as “lalas”) in China in securing defamilisation and familisation. It has two objectives – to show the challenges lalas face in organizing their life in interaction with the family, work economy and government; and to discuss how these challenges make women with same-sex desire difficult to secure defamilisation and familisation. Familisation refers to the extent to which people’s participation in the family is increased; whereas defamilisation refers to the extent to which people’s participation in the family is reduced.

The authors conducted literature review and in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese women with same-sex desire in Beijing to collect and analyze data for fulfilling the two objectives.

Lalas face serious challenges in their daily lives – they receive insufficient support from the government, work economy and family in organizing their life and their freedom is constrained by these three sectors. These challenges render lalas difficult to achieve several types of defamilisation/familisation (the “carer,” “care receiver,” “provider of financial support” and “receiver of financial support”).

Few defamilisation and familisation studies focus on women with same-sex desire. No studies on defamilisation and familisation of lalas in China have been done before. With the focus on lalas, the paper discovers new causes of the difficulties in securing defamilisation/familisation, and possible solutions to these difficulties.

This article explores the link between defamilisation studies and studies of the adult worker model and discusses the mixed implications that government strategies for supporting the adult worker model have for defamilisation. The adult worker model emphasises that all adult men and women ought to engage in formal employment; defamilisation studies stress the importance of enhancing women's chances of choosing (not) to perform important family roles such as the receiver of financial support and the care provider.

Two new strategies (“condition building” and “rewarding/penalising”) for promoting the adult worker model are identified based on literature review; their empirical significance is explored through an examination of comparative data concerning early childhood education and care policies (ECEC) and reforms in pension age in 14 countries.

The evidence shows that promoting the adult worker model does not necessarily benefit all women. While the 14 countries provide ECEC to varying extents, the increase in pension age in most countries shows that governments adopt a “rewarding/penalising” strategy for promoting the adult worker model by allocating major welfare based on people's labour force participation. These pension reforms may generate a negative impact on women's chances of attaining financial autonomy.

This study presents two new strategies for promoting the adult worker model and shows the empirical significance of these strategies based on comparative data. It also highlights the importance of searching for alternative concepts, namely economic defamilisation, for guiding pension reforms.

This article aims to link discussions of the role of earnings-related pension measures with time in Hong Kong (HK) and the United Kingdom (UK). It presents a new conceptual “time-based framework” to explore two related types of government response to the way people accumulate pension incomes through participation in paid work. The first is to consider governments' perceptions of appropriate time in work and retirement. The second is to consider how governments use pension measures to influence the connection between the amount of time people spend in paid work and retirement.

This is a conceptual paper. The time-based framework is developed using literature concerning discretionary time and the social construction of time. To explore the empirical significance of this framework, the authors discuss how it can be applied to the analysis of earnings-related pension measures in HK and the UK.

The evidence generated from the discussion of the earnings-related pension measures in HK and the UK shows that pension policies can serve both as a financial and time instrument. At the same time as influencing the connection between the amount of time people spend in paid work and the pensions they can accumulate, pension policies can be used to convey the government's views on important time issues, namely the appropriate length of time in work and retirement, and the relative value of the time spent in paid work and providing informal care.

A new framework is developed to explore the connection between the studies of earnings-related pension measures and time, which is an understudied area.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore the strategies used by the Hong Kong government to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model; and to explore the views of women on the desirability of these strategies. The male-breadwinner model posits that men work full-time outside the home and women take on domestic work. The adult worker model suggests that women and men should be equally expected to participate in formal employment.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter analyses the policy measures used by the Hong Kong government to support women in their participation in formal employment and the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) as well as other policy measures that offer potential for enabling family care providers to accumulate resources for secure retirement. Additionally, it draws on semi-structured interviews with 30 Hong Kong young women to examine their views on the extent to which the government supports them to save pension incomes.

Findings – This study shows that the Hong Kong government uses a ‘weak action strategy’ to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model, and that this strategy fails to meet women’s diverse preferences for their roles in the labour market and the family.

Originality/value – Based on a newly developed framework, this study examines the responses made by the government to both the male-breadwinner model and the adult worker model. It sheds new insights into possible ways of assisting women to achieve secure retirement .

This paper aims to analyse how both Lin’s birthplace identity and his Christian identity contributed to his fruitful public career and to ascertain which identity became the most significant.

Archival research is the main method used in this paper. The most important archives drawn from are the Daniel Tse Collection in the Special Collection and Archives of the Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Oral history has also been used in this paper to uncover more material that has not yet been discussed in existing scholarly works.

This paper argues that although Lin’s birthplace identity and social networks helped him to start his business career in Nam Pak Hong and develop into a leader in the local Chaozhou communities, these factors were insufficient to his becoming a respectable member of the Chinese elite in post-war Hong Kong. He became well known not because of his leading position in local Chaozhou communities or any great achievement he had obtained in business but because of his contribution to the development of Christian education. These achievements earned him a reputation as a “Christian educator”. Thus Lin’s Christian identity became more important than his birthplace identity in contributing to his successful public career.

This paper has value in showing how Christian influences interacted with various cultural factors in early Hong Kong. It also offers insights into Lin’s life and motivations as well as the history of the institutions he contributed to/founded. It not only furthers our understanding of the Chinese Christian business elite in early Hong Kong but also provides us with insights when further studying this group of people in other British colonies in Asia.

This research outlines the Hong Kong film industry with examination of key actors, directors, films, and production companies within the martial arts genre of Hong Kong Action Cinema. Hong Kong Film Award winners and nominees, core films within genres, and core reference works both general and theoretical from experts in the field of Hong Kong martial arts film research have been highlighted. Web sites are suggested that provide reviews of Hong Kong martial arts films, biographical information on a variety of actors and actresses as well as comprehensive bibliographic information on select films. Also included are commercial Web sites that provide Hong Kong martial arts films.

Since the launch of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) in 2003, Hong Kong cinema is believed to have confronted drastic changes. Hong Kong cinema is described to be dying, lacking creative space and losing local distinctiveness. A decade later, the rise of Hong Kong – China coproduction cinema under CEPA has been normalized and changed the once pessimism in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Hong Kong cinema adjusted its production and creation in the first 10 years of CEPA.

Beginning with a review of the overall development, three paradigmatic cases are examined for reflecting upon what the major industrial and commercial concerns on the Hong Kong – China coproduction model are, and how such a coproduction model is not developed as smooth as what the Hong Kong filmmakers expected.

Collectively, this paper singles out the difficulties in operation and the limit of transnationality that occur in the Chinese context for the development of Hong Kong cinema under the Hong Kong – China coproduction model.

This is the author’s research in his five-year study of Hong Kong cinema and it contributes a lot to the field of cinema studies with relevant industrial and policy concern.