Withering away of the Hong Kong dream?: Women workers under industrial restructuring

During the last decade, Hong Kong’s economy has experienced a rapid restructuring and the dwindling of the industrial sector. To find out more about how this industrial restructuring affected women workers in manufacturing industries, we conducted In January 1995 a telephone survey of 1,004 workers, of which 505 were female. The survey questionnaire examined different types of employment status change of our respondents during the five-year period before the poll. Following upon the survey, we conducted in-depth interviews with 40 women workers selected from our telephone poll. Our analysis suggests that, when the Hong Kong economic structure is in flux, employment status within that structure become fluid as well. This is most evident from the collective employment experience of women workers in the past five years; many have in fact moved in and out of different employments frequently. As the economies of Hong Kong and the mainland become more integrated, this cohort of women workers confronts a double jeopardy in finding new employment mothering responsibilities and age discrimination. Economic restructuring also afflicts the quality of their workplace experience and family life, as well as their sense of self worth. Although some cope with the situation by learning new skills, most have become frustrated and angry at being denied full time jobs with reasonable pay, at the time when they are still fully capable of and committed to working. In short, the overall impact on women workers is one of falling down both the class and gender ladders. If they have always been at the bottom of the class and gender hierarchies, restructuring has brought about a further deterioration in both dimensions of their social position. In terms of employment, they are now either unemployed or with marginalized and informal employment, or with ser-vice jobs paying less than their manufacturing jobs in the past. At home, they have become more dependent on (and subordinate to) their husbands and are forced to resume the domestic roles of house-wife and mother. Gender roles have once again been rigidified as gender inequalities at home and at work are reinforced.
在過去十年間，香港的經濟結構經歷一急速轉型，工業部門大幅收縮。為了進一步了解工業轉型對製造業女工有何影響，我們進行了一個電話調查，訪問了1,004位五年前在製造業工作之工人，其中505位為女性。調查的主要目的在於了解五年間製造工人的就業情況有何改變。其後我們更對40位女被訪者進行深入的訪談。我們的研究結果顯示，婦女勞工在工業轉型下就業處境極不穩定，往往在就業、失業及半失業間徘徊。在照顧家庭上之負擔、勞工市場的年齡及性別歧視之下，大量的女工退出勞工市場，生活質素明顯下降。工業轉型更為她們帶來一種較為隱晦的傷害，令她們的自身評價及自我形象大受打擊。在工業轉型下，她們不但失去一份安穩、「過得去」的工作，更令她們一向引以為傲的生產技術也好像變得一文不值。她們只會感到憤怒及擔憂，深深體會到社會制度的不公平。這種心境我們形容為「香港夢」的幻滅，對她們來說，香港再也不是一個公平、充滿機會的地方，再也不是一個憑藉個人努力就可以為自己及家人創造安穩生活的地方。 Copyright © 1997 Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.