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Below is a question by Dr Hon Helena Wong Pik-wan and a reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (November 13):
Question:
The consultation paper published last month by the Steering Committee on Population Policy indicated that the overall labour force participation rate (LFPR) for women in 2012 was 49.6%, which was lower than 68.7% for men, and there was a sharp decline of womenˇ¦s LFPR within the 30 to 39 age range. Some women have relayed to me that when they enter the life stage of marriage and childbearing in their thirties, they are forced to quit their jobs in order to take care of their children because the child care services provided by the authorities are inadequate. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether the authorities have conducted regular reviews on the numbers of places available and persons waiting for various types of child care services in various District Council (DC) districts in order to determine if the child care services provided in various districts can meet the demands; if they have, of the details, with a breakdown of the figures in the past three years by year, DC district and type of child care service; if not, the reasons for that;
(b) whether the authorities have any specific plan to enhance the quality and quantity of child care services, in order to enable more women who have young children to rejoin the labour market so as to unleash the female labour force; if they have, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
(c) as I have learnt that countries such as Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Singapore offer subsidies to parents in the form of child care benefit or child benefit, whether the authorities will make reference to overseas experience and provide child care allowance to families in need; if they will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the question raised by Dr Hon Helena Wong Pik-wan is as follows:
(a) To support parents who are unable to take care of their children temporarily because of work or other reasons, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) has all along been providing subsidy to non-governmental organisations to run a variety of child care services for children below the age of six, including standalone child care centres (CCCs), CCCs attached to kindergartens (KGs), occasional child care service, extended hours child care service and mutual help CCCs (MHCCCs), etc.
In addition to institutional child care centres, the Government has also proactively promoted non-institutional child care services in recent years. The Neighborhood Support Child Care Project (NSCCP) was regularised and extended to all 18 districts in Hong Kong in 2011 to provide more flexible and convenient services to parents. Since the implementation of NSCCP, there has been a steady increase in the number of beneficiaries. Under NSCCP, service operators have the flexibility to provide additional child care places on top of the minimum requirement set by SWD in order to meet the actual service demand.
SWD has all along been closely monitoring the operation of various child care services. The number of places and utilisation rate for subsidised/non-profit-making/private standalone CCCs, KG-cum-CCCs, occasional child care service, extended hours child care service, MHCCCs and NSCCP in each of the past three financial years by administrative district under SWD are set out in Tables 1 to 3. In general, there are still unused quotas for various child care services.
SWD will continue to closely monitor the service demand of various child care services. Subject to funding availability, consideration will be given to adjusting resource allocation and increasing the provision of service places and relevant subsidy when the need arises. Measures for consideration may include setting up new standalone CCCs in districts with keen demand or examining the feasibility of in-situ service expansion in existing CCCs subject to the relevant requirements under the Child Care Services Ordinance.
(b) and (c) To ensure that low-income families can afford the relevant services, SWD provides needy families with different forms of fee waiver or subsidy. Families in need may apply through service operators. At present, there are still unused fee subsidy quotas for various child care services.
Moreover, under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme, children are provided with higher standard rates. The Scheme also takes special care of the needs of children through the provision of various special grants, such as child care grants to pay for fees of child care centre and occasional child care services.
The Steering Committee on Population Policy (SCPP) released its consultation document on October 24, 2013. It invites views of the public on issues including how to assist women to balance their work and family and encourage female homemakers to work or rejoin the labour market, etc. This will help SCPP in its next stage of work, which involves formulating strategies to address the population challenges and mapping out an actionable agenda covering short and long-term measures.
Ends/Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Issued at HKT 13:34
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