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Concerns of equity with respect to the community college model in East Asia persist in educational research. In this study, we described and analysed students' "lived experience" in community colleges in Hong Kong in terms of the "warming up" or "cooling out" of their educational desire. Semistructured interviews with 14 graduates of community colleges in Hong Kong were conducted to determine how their experiences at community colleges affected their educational expectations and the extent to which community colleges help students reconsider their educational disadvantages in a competitive, meritocratic and massified higher education system. The qualitative interview data were inductively thematised into four aspects of college experience in relation to their educational expectations. The data revealed that Hong Kong's community colleges help some students develop their capabilities and change their educational expectations through democratic admissions, liberal pedagogic environments, learner-centred formative assessment and student services for strategic university articulation. Rather than cooling-out students' educational desire (characterised by gradual disengagement, objective denial, alternative achievement), community colleges in Hong Kong provide a second chance for failing and disadvantaged students to pursue a university education, but this warming-up function applies only to students who benefitted from the liberal mode of assessment and discovered and developed their academic capabilities in their college experience. The paper ends with a critical analysis of the problem of such warming up of educational desire and the extent to which community colleges can empower disadvantaged students for a good life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens' own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of related party transactions (RPTs) and types of RPTs (complex, simple and loan) on earnings quality in four East Asian countries: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Design/methodology/approach: RPTs and types of RPTs are measured using two approaches, magnitude and abnormal (magnitude change). Earnings quality is measured using proxies for accrual earnings management and identified as discretionary accruals (DAC) and performance matched discretional accruals (PMDAC). Findings: The results suggest that firms in these countries experience poor earnings quality when they are engaged in RPT. The effect of RPT-simple on earnings quality is more severe than RPT-complex. However, the presence of higher investor protection and stricter enforcement of regulations in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong reduce the negative impact of RPTs on earnings quality. Research limitations/implications: The results support the argument that the presence of controlling shareholders in East Asia is likely to lead to engagement with RPTs, which will increase the likelihood of firms' earnings manipulation via DAC. This study has two limitations. It only focuses on Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and the results may not be generalizable to other countries. Second, this study only measures the magnitude and abnormal RPTs based on the disclosures available in annual reports. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature by examining the effect of RPTs and types of RPTs on earnings quality in four selected East Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The East Asian experience in tackling COVID-19 has been highly praised, but this high-level generalisation neglects variation in pandemic response measures adopted across countries as well as the socio-political factors that shaped them. This paper compares the early pandemic response in Singapore and Hong Kong, two Asian city-states of similar sizes, a shared history of SARS, and advanced medical systems. Although both were able to contain the virus, they did so using two very different approaches. Drawing upon data from a cross-national, probability sample Internet survey conducted in May 2020 as well as media and mobility data, we argue that the different approaches were the result of the relative strength of civil society vs. the state at the outset of the outbreak. In protest-ridden Hong Kong, low governmental trust bolstered civil society, which focused on self-mobilisation and community mutual-help. In Singapore, a state-led response model that marginalised civil society brought early success but failed to stem an outbreak among its segregated migrant population. Our findings show that an active civil society is pivotal to effective outbreak response and that trust in government may not have been as important as a factor in these contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-border partnerships are increasingly important for higher education in the twenty-first century. Drawing from the business sector's resource-based theory, this paper explores international partner selection among higher education institutions in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. According to resource-based theory, institutions may seek partners with specific technical capabilities, managerial capabilities or other intangible resources to access external knowledge and capabilities, develop internal resources and gain competitive advantage. Through document analysis and interviews, this investigation identified twelve attributes that influenced international partner selection for higher education institutions in these contexts. Eleven fit within resource-based theory's criteria areas of technical capabilities, managerial capabilities and intangible resources. These determined the attractiveness of potential partners. However, existing relationships, the twelfth attribute, wasoften the deciding factor of whether or not a partnership would move forward. Importantly, while contextual differences were observed, these attributes were present across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Family Therapy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In popular culture, Hong Kong is probably the most “Japanese city” outside Japan. It is home to a wide variety of Japanese popular cultural products and a regional base to many of the Japanese music and television companies who expanded their operations in the city in the early 1990s. Hong Kong's emerging middle class, especially the younger generation, has enthusiastically accepted Japanese contemporary culture and lifestyle, making the city one of the biggest destinations for Japan's cultural exports. Based on fieldwork surveys and interviews, this paper looks at the organizational aspect of popular culture during the heydays of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong in the 1990s and early 2000s. The investigation focuses on the marketing strategies and promotional efforts used by agents of Japanese popular culture in Hong Kong and the role of popular culture piracy in this process. Beyond analyzing the Japanese case, the paper introduces a new framework to examine the transnational expansion of popular cultures across markets in East and Southeast Asia, highlighting the role of companies and promoters in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article critically reviews the national innovation systems of the four little tigers in East Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, in fostering R&D and technological research. A national innovation system is characterised by the interactions between the state, industries and universities in promoting innovation. This article attempts to explore such interactions in the four societies, paying particular attention to the role of higher education. Specifically, university–industry collaboration is the main body of analysis. Drawing from comparative perspectives, this article finally maps out the national innovation systems of East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, characteristics of mathematics classrooms in the East Asian countries1 of Hong Kong and Japan are discussed based on an analysis of the data of the TIMSS 1999 Video Study. The data shows that although students in these East Asian countries did not talk a lot in the classroom, they were exposed to more instructional content. The mathematics problems they worked on were set up mainly using mathematical language, and compared with the problems solved by students in other countries, the problems took a longer duration to solve and more proof was involved. According to the judgement of an expert panel on the Hong Kong lessons (Japan did not participate in this part of the study), more advanced contents were covered and the lessons were more coherent. The mathematics presentations were more developed, and the students were more likely to be engaged in the lessons. In sum, the overall quality of the teaching in this East Asian country was judged to be high. The findings show that high quality teaching and learning can take place even in a teacher directed classroom. It is argued that these East Asian classroom practices are deeply rooted in the underlying cultural values of the classroom and the wider society. The paper ends by drawing some implications of the study for the mathematics education community in other cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of exchange rate changes on trade flows among East Asian countries spanning 1990-2021, using pooled mean group estimator, within the framework of panel data analysis. Findings indicate that world income, trade openness, and the real effective exchange rate strongly affect trade balance, and that the real depreciation of exchange rate exerts strong positive benefits on trade flows in the long run. The study also infers that trade openness and real effective exchange rate had strong influence on exports and imports for Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea in the short run. However, the depreciation of their currencies discouraged imports in the long run. More so, world income strongly affects the exports and imports of Hong Kong and Japan, while trade openness is advantageous for all the countries. The study recommends the continuation of the prevailing tradegrowth pattern, and the existing bilateral pegged exchange rate policy with their trading partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to develop an integrated policy index system using a Surface Measure of Overall Performance ( SMOP) approach to comprehensively evaluate and compare the policy input and social output of the retirement payment system in urban and rural China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. With this, a tool may be developed to help insightfully examine the old-age income policies and appropriately, and perhaps theoretically in the future, categorize the types of retirement provisions or social security policies as a whole in the East and West. The results indicate that, particularly in urban China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, a low level of de-familization and medium and high levels of gender equality are the common features of these five pensions in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Furthermore, it is found that the retirement provisions in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan can well be divided into two groups based on the level of pension right protection and illustrate different characteristics between them accordingly. In addition, policy implications and suggestions for further reforms of these retirement payment schemes are elaborated in the light of the findings of this policy index system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on survey data collected in Hong Kong and other economies of East Asia, this paper examines youth's access to and use of the Internet and potential consequences of Internet use on youth in the region. The paper compares Internet use by Hong Kong youth with their peers in neighboring economies to help highlight the unique features as well as common practices of Hong Kong youth. The findings, though by no means representative of Asia, provide a set of consistent and reliable benchmarks against which other parts of Asia and beyond could be compared in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mandated reporting of key performance indicators by public agencies to public accountability authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The author suggests that the existence of these indicators in public agencies' annual reports and budget papers does not necessarily lead to their effective use for decision making. The actual utilization of these indicators for making decisions should be described as careful and cautious. They are still affective because they give symbolic benefits to the government.

Background: The rate of international migration for the primary purpose of employment has increased exponentially in recent decades. A significant proportion of this global movement takes place across East and Southeast Asia as workers move on a temporary basis from lower-middle-income home countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to high-income host destinations including Hong Kong and Singapore. Relatively little is known about the unique and long-term health needs of this heterogeneous group of people. This systematic review presents an analysis of recent research into the experiences and perceptions of health of temporary migrant workers in the East and Southeast Asian regions. Methods: Five electronic databases CINAHL Complete (via EbscoHost), EMBASE (including Medline), PsycINFO (via ProQuest), PubMed and Web of Science, were systematically searched for qualitative or mixed methods, peer-reviewed literature published in print or online between January 2010 and December 2020. Quality of the studies was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research published by the Joanna Briggs Institute. Findings from the included articles were extracted and synthesised using qualitative thematic analysis. Results: Eight articles were included in the review. Findings from this review indicate that multiple dimensions of workers' health is impacted by the processes of temporary migration. In addition, the research reviewed indicated that migrant workers used various strategies and mechanisms to attempt to address their health-related issues and to take better care of themselves. Such agentic practices could help them manage and maintain their health and wellbeing across physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions within the structural constraints of their employment. Conclusions: Limited published research has focused on the health perceptions and needs of temporary migrant workers in East and Southeast Asia. The studies included in this review focused on female migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines. These studies provide valuable insights but do not reflect the heterogeneity of migrants moving within these regions. The findings of this systematic review highlight that temporary migrant workers experience high and sustained levels of stress and are exposed to certain health risks which may compromise long-term health outcomes. These workers demonstrate knowledge and skills in managing their own health. This suggests that strength-based approaches to health promotion interventions may be effective in optimising their health over time. These findings are relevant to policy makers and non-government organisations supporting migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine and compare decision‐making preferences on end‐of‐life care for older people in Japan, the Hong Kong SAR and South Korea. Background: Cultural values and beliefs influence decision‐making on end‐of‐life care. Design: A cross‐sectional design was adopted. Methods: Community‐dwelling people aged ≥65 with additional requirements were recruited in 2016–2017 in the three regions. Their decision‐making preferences on end‐of‐life care were assessed using Pang et al.'s questionnaire. These preferences and their sociodemographic and personal experience variables were compared and analysed using univariate and multiple logistic regressions. The STROBE checklist was followed. Results: This study involved 415 participants. In all three regions, the most preferred decision maker and person with whom to discuss end‐of‐life care issues was a family member. Participants in the Hong Kong SAR were less likely to select a family member as their preferred decision maker than those in Japan (adjusted odds ratio = 0.129). Koreans were less likely to discuss end‐of‐life care issues with medical professionals than people in Japan (adjusted odds ratio = 0.278). More than 70% of the participants in each region indicated that they would not prefer to leave an advance directive to decide their end‐of‐life care. Conclusion: Older Asians prefer to make their own decisions after consulting others. Family members play an important role in helping older people plan their preferred end‐of‐life care arrangements, even acting as decision makers when older people become incapable of deciding for themselves. Relevance to clinical practice: Sufficient information should be provided to older people and their families for the older people to determine their preferred care. Helping families to understand and support the planned care and advance directives is a strategy for maximising family compliance with the care. Continuous efforts should be made to promote advance care planning and advance directives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across East and Southeast Asia, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is expanding and diversifying. More students from affluent families are 'opting out' of mainstream schooling to take the IB's Diploma Programme (DP), which is marketed as a distinctive skill-based education that prepares students for university. This research investigated how DP alumni reflect on their educational experiences in developing cognitive and non-cognitive skills and as preparation for elite universities in Hong Kong. An online undergraduate survey (n = 734) found that DP alumni self-perceived higher capacities than non-DP alumni in communication, creativity, critical thinking, cultural sensitivity, global-mindedness, leadership, and time management. In interviews (n = 42), DP alumni perceived the DP as a privileged educational experience that 'worked' in developing cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The DP alumni were overall positive about their DP experiences in developing skills for university preparation. However, there were complexities as the DP alumni also perceived that students from mainstream schools were often better prepared for pedagogy and assessments in the context of higher education in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Population & Sociétés is the property of Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Is measuring poverty an exercise in the art of the possible? Could we have a poverty line which captures both the absolute and relative elements of poverty in one measure? This paper argues for the use of a poverty line for measuring poverty in newly industrialized East Asian societies that is expenditure-based. We present a number of arguments for the expenditure poverty measure, an alternative to the prevalent and popular measures--absolute and relative poverty. Special reference is made to the social and economic context in East Asia. The case example of Hong Kong is used to demonstrate that the expenditure-based poverty line is a more reliable and sensitive measure. More importantly, this research offers a tool which determines a strategy for social expenditures in terms of poverty alleviation that is in line with a society's social and economic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As migration is an important social phenomenon, the present study analyzes the influence of migration on migrant students' performance in mathematics. In a secondary analysis of data from Program for International Student Assessment 2012 (PISA), the mathematics achievements of students from three top-performing East Asian metropolitan areas were examined with reference to their migration backgrounds. The findings show that there is a close relation between the migration policy of the receiving system and the mathematics achievements of migrant students, with the migrant status being of advantage in one case (Singapore) and of disadvantage in two cases (Shanghai and Hong Kong SAR). These results suggest that it is important to separate the different types of migrants while relating these types with the corresponding migration policies of the receiving system and the mathematics achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effect of related party transactions (RPTs) on value relevance and informativeness of accounting earnings for firms based in East Asia. Using a hand-collected sample of 398 listed companies comprising 1194 firm-year observations from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, we find that firms engaging more extensively in RPTs have significantly lower value relevance and lower informativeness of earnings both in the current year and subsequent year than firms engaging less in RPTs. Furthermore, the results indicate that the types of RPTs affect value relevance and informativeness of earnings differently in that the effect of simple and loans RPTs are more negative than complex transactions. The extent of the negative effect of RPTs is lower in Hong Kong and Singapore where investor protection is higher compared to the other two economies. These findings are robust to controlling for firm-specific attributes, corporate governance, ownership structure, earnings quality, and a variety of sensitivity tests. These results are consistent with the conflict of interest view that RPTs compromise the quality of accounting earnings and this leads to the reduction in earnings and market value relationship for firms that engage in RPTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives There is little understanding about how rapid urban development has affected the extent to which communities are able to optimize health and participation opportunities for older adults in Hong Kong. Our objective was to examine what older residents perceive to be the shortcomings of their communities in meeting their psychosocial and physical needs as they age. Research Design and Methods In reference to the WHO Age-Friendly Cities Project Methodology: Vancouver Protocol, we conducted nine focus groups comprising 65 participants for an Age-Friendly City baseline assessment in two districts in Hong Kong, China. Participants were asked to share their views on their respective district of residence, and identify aspects of the city they found unfriendly. Data generated from interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Five of the following key themes were identified: the failure of public transportation to cater to the needs of older adults; a lack of public space for recreation and socializing; diminishing human interactions in welfare services; physical and financial challenges relating to housing; and workplace discrimination against older adults. Discussion and Implications These findings underscore the importance of prioritizing the social welfare of older adults in building a more inclusive and age-friendly city. They also highlight the difficulties in fostering an inclusive environment while ensuring efficiency and profit maximization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a recent wave of scholarship on urban development in East Asia, this article offers a critical account of the twists and turns of Hong Kong’s urban development by focusing on class recomposition, state strategies and their relationships with the city’s changing position in its regional political economy. To do so, it examines how the middle class and their housing and investment demand have begun to lose their significance as a driver of urban gentrification. Meanwhile, since the resumption of China’s sovereignty over the city and the outbreak of Asian financial crisis, the local and central state have engineered a finance-led growth model whose diverse neoliberal interventions and political calculations have persistently lead to widespread discontent with “developer hegemony” and private property-led urban redevelopment. Using a case study of Wan Chai and the rise of serviced apartments, this article argues that this transition has marked the rise of a new urban developmentism in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting homothetic variable returns to scale functional specifications, this study identifies the returns to scale in the aggregate production functions of four East Asian newly industrialized economies–Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan–and the Group of Five economies based on a maximum likelihood estimation. The study finds evidence of increasing returns in the early developmental stage of the East Asian economies. Separating out the scale contribution from the non-scale factor contributions, the decomposition of the sources of East Asian economic growth differs significantly from the conventional constant returns to scale results, indicating that the role of technical progress is overestimated when constant returns to scale is assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]