Macau “in a unique position to design a social welfare system”

2014-3-11

From：Macau Daily Times

In Macau, the development of a social welfare system is still in its early stages, so we have the time and resources to design a brand new system,” stated Chien-Chung Huang, a professor at the School of Social Work at Rutgers University.
In his lecture at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) last week, Huang gave an overview of the developments in social welfare in the United States and further discussed their implications for Macau.
“In the US, there’s not much of the social security system that can be reformed, as all the problems are already there; also they don’t have the resources,” he stressed. “But in Macau, we have resources and it’s still at an early stage, so we can design whatever the system we like. That’s the reason why I think Macau is in a unique position to design a social welfare system.”
Thanks to its sustainable, high gaming revenue, the MSAR has the conditions to build “a universal social welfare system” without taxing people, the scholar suggests.
“That’s an advantage of Macau, because universal welfare systems can be very expensive. Other countries need to take more tax from the population to provide universal benefits.”
Huang is advocating a universal welfare system that will cover the whole population, although having a selective welfare system that targets certain disadvantaged groups would result in lower costs and higher efficiency.
“Social welfare is a redistribution of resources from those who are better-off to those who are worse-off. From a humanitarian point of view,” he explained. “Besides, having a selective welfare system can stigmatize the beneficiaries and may also discourage employment.”
The professor explained that the social welfare systems of every country are unique at any given point in time, as the formulation of welfare policy is determined by the interaction of various factors including resources, historical heritage, societal values and the view of human nature.
As a reference for Macau, he indicated that the US’s 1996 welfare reform changed the States’ welfare system, changing the benefits from long-term to temporary assistance and from unconditional rights to conditional workfare, which discourages marriage and work.
“How to build the universal welfare system, how to design the benefits, how much the guaranteed amount will be, and how it will affect people’s behavior –  these are the things we need to consider,” he added.
In regards to this, the scholar suggested that research be done on Macau’s “cash-handout” scheme, to explore whether this universal benefit could “make a difference.” “The government should definitely follow up on this to see how the scheme changes people’s behavior and how they use the money given to them,” he proposed.
“Is our government prepared to provide benefits to people in need? I think in a sense we are, because the Macau government has a lot of wealth. But we haven’t really got a proper plan about where we are going,” incidated Jacky Ho, the Social Work Program Coordinator of USJ.
Responding to the rapid social change in Macau, such as the importation of foreign labor and its aging society, Ho stressed that the government should establish a database in order to monitor societal trends and fomulate policies catering to different social groups. “We should develop a social service delegator to people from outside,” he added.
“Macau is becoming a city where we’re starting to get involved and get in touch with the international standard. What I’m afraid of is that, although we are moving in that direction, the government might not be able to understand the philosophy behind it,” he stressed.
“Sometimes we have to bear in mind that we observe what Hong Kong and Singapore did in their cities, but we cannot just make a copy of their whole scheme and implement it in Macau,” Ho concluded.

Copyright@Macau Daily Times