Multidimensional poverty in Hong Kong: measurements and implications

Multidimensional poverty in urban cities has become a growing worldwide concern. Hong Kong, a typical global city, has a high GDP per capita and high economic inequality. The Hong Kong government established the official poverty line in 2013 using 50 percent of the median household income as the threshold. However, the income-based approach does not fully reflect the poverty situation in Hong Kong due to high living expenses, poor living conditions, and individual perceptions of poverty. Other dimensions of poverty, such as deprivation, social exclusion, subjective poverty, and housing poverty, have been ignored in the official policy agenda. This chapter reviews existing studies and proposes alternative methods to measure multidimensional poverty in Hong Kong. Representative survey data are also used to examine the multidimensional poverty situation. The social and policy implications of these results and limitations are discussed.