Press Releases

HKFWC believes that Hong Kong's high-quality development requires the participation of people of different ages, economic backgrounds and family roles. Women have long undertaken a substantial amount of unpaid care work, while their employment, health, economic autonomy and social participation are also affected by caregiving responsibilities and the gendered division of labour within families. As the Government further refines the Five-Year Plan and policy measures, it should continue to implement gender mainstreaming, formulate specific objectives according to the needs and lived circumstances of different groups of women, and ensure that the benefits of social development are shared equitably among different groups in society.

Strengthening Support for Carers: From Financial Assistance to Institutional Recognition

HKFWC supports the Government's decision to increase the monthly allowance under the Scheme on Living Allowance for Carers of Elderly Persons from Low-income Families and the Scheme on Living Allowance for Low-income Carers of Persons with Disabilities from HK$3,000 to HK$3,300. We also welcome the enhancement of the automated operation of the Carer Support Data Platform (CSDP), the optimisation of the Designated Hotline for Carer Support, and the provision of additional manpower to identify and support high-risk carers. The introduction of the Community Dining Hall and the Wellness-on-Wheels project will also help bring support into the community and reach carers who are less likely to seek help proactively.

We welcome the Government’s gradual recognition of carers’ contribution to society. Whether within families or in the public sphere, care work forms an important foundation. For decades, a substantial amount of care work has been undertaken without pay by women and other family members, filling gaps arising from an insufficient supply of public care services. Women carers devote considerable time and labour to supporting care recipients in their daily lives, reducing pressure on healthcare, social welfare and residential care services. However, the social and economic value of unpaid care work remains inadequately recognised. The long-term concentration of care responsibilities on individuals and families has also placed considerable physical and psychological pressure on many women carers, affecting their employment, income, retirement protection, social participation and personal development.[1]

At present, Hong Kong’s carer allowance schemes are primarily poverty-oriented, with specified income limits and a requirement that care recipients be on waiting lists for designated services. Eligibility is linked to the carer’s household income and the care recipient’s service waiting-list status. HKFWC believes that the policy positioning of carer allowances should gradually expand from poverty relief to the institutional recognition of unpaid care work. The allowances can recognise the actual contribution of care work to the functioning of society and the public service system. The Government should further relax the income and eligibility requirements, progressively reduce the linkage between eligibility and the care recipient’s waiting-list status, regularly review the level of allowance, and establish an adjustment mechanism linked to the cost of living to ensure that the allowance responds to carers’ actual needs. Carer allowances should also be developed alongside day care, home-based support, respite care, rehabilitation services, childcare and emergency support. Cash allowances cannot replace public care services. The Government remains responsible for establishing adequate care services and promoting the sharing of care responsibilities across society.

Promoting Carer-Friendly Employment: Enabling Carers to “Care Without Leaving Employment”

Following the proposal in the 2024 Policy Address to provide three days of childcare leave per year for government employees with children under the age of three, the Government has this year further proposed providing Family Care Leave for government employees, expanding family-friendly employment measures. HKFWC supports this family-friendly measure. Employees may assume responsibilities for childcare, eldercare and caring for family members who are ill or have disabilities at different stages of life. As one of Hong Kong’s major employers, the Government is setting an example through this measure and consolidating its leading role.

HKFWC hopes that, following the implementation of Family Care Leave, the Government will continue to review its utilisation and actual effectiveness. The Government should also draw on its implementation experience to encourage private-sector organisations to establish carer-friendly workplaces, including the provision of caregiving leave, flexible working hours and locations, emergency care arrangements, flexible shift scheduling and phased return-to-work arrangements. At the same time, the Government should study the provision of appropriate support for small and medium-sized enterprises, enabling more employees to make genuine choices between employment and caregiving responsibilities.

According to HKFWC’s 2024 Survey on Carers’ Employment Situation and Carer-Friendly Workplace Measures[2], 63% of carers who were not in employment had left their jobs because they found it difficult to balance employment and caregiving responsibilities. More than 80% of carers who were not in employment hoped to re-enter the workforce, while 73% considered incompatible working hours to be the greatest barrier to returning to employment. Around 44% of respondents had also experienced unfriendly employment treatment because of their status as carers.

Employment policies for carers need to provide support before carers leave their jobs, putting “care without leaving employment” into practice so that carers are not forced to give up employment and economic autonomy because of their caregiving responsibilities. At the same time, prolonged caregiving responsibilities may lead some women to leave the workforce, reduce their working hours or postpone personal development. When caregiving responsibilities decrease or come to an end, carers often need to update their skills, rebuild confidence, organise their previous experience and identify employment opportunities compatible with their circumstances as they re-enter the labour market. HKFWC recommends that the Government and relevant sectors promote career planning services for carers, particularly women carers, providing personalised assessment, skills identification, training planning, job matching, entrepreneurship support and return-to-work arrangements.

HKFWC also notes the Government’s introduction of the two-year “30 000 Youth Employment and Internship Programme”. This model can be adapted to support carers returning to the workforce, enabling women to extend their caregiving experience into employment, entrepreneurship or other forms of personal development, and providing women carers with skills identification and training, job matching, paid internships, mentorship support and opportunities for phased entry into employment.

HKFWC recommends that the Government study the establishment of a mechanism to identify and accredit care-related experience and skills. This would help women carers translate the substantial transferable skills accumulated through caregiving, including communication and co-ordination, time management, crisis handling, health management, problem-solving and community resource mobilisation, into qualifications for further education, training and employment. This would affirm the value of care work and create more opportunities for carers’ sustainable development.

Building Carer-Friendly Communities

We observe that women carers accompanying older persons, persons with disabilities or children often need to bring wheelchairs, strollers and caregiving supplies. The Government should encourage restaurants, shopping malls and public service facilities to provide designated spaces for wheelchairs and strollers and ensure that passageways remain accessible. Parks, playgrounds and public open spaces could also provide lockers, sheltered areas, seating and temporary storage spaces for caregiving supplies. The Government could develop design guidelines for carer-friendly facilities and invite carers to participate in on-site user testing, improving community facilities and reducing the physical and psychological burden of carers’ daily journeys.

Improving Women’s Mental Health Support: Addressing Psychological Abuse and Coercive Control

HKFWC welcomes the Government’s continued efforts to strengthen community psychological and mental health support, including the further development of District Health Centres across all 18 districts within five years, the expansion of primary healthcare services, and the integration of mental health information into educational and workplace settings. These measures can promote prevention, early identification and community intervention, enabling members of the public to receive support before mental health conditions deteriorate.

HKFWC is particularly concerned about the close relationship between some women’s mental health difficulties and psychological abuse, coercive control and gender-based violence within families and intimate relationships. Based on HKFWC’s frontline service experience, approximately 60% to 80% of related help-seeking cases over the past five years involved psychological abuse. A survey conducted by HKFWC in 2026 collected 434 questionnaires, with 68.9% of respondents reporting that they had experienced at least one form of coercive or controlling behaviour that could constitute psychological abuse.[3] Such behaviours may include persistent humiliation, intimidation, economic control, social isolation, tracking and digital surveillance, gradually undermining women’s autonomy, social connections and ability to seek help.

HKFWC recommends that the Government strengthen community education when promoting mental health policies to help the public identify psychological abuse and coercive control. The Government should also establish consistent criteria for identifying psychological abuse and coercive control, risk assessment methods and referral procedures for social workers, police officers, healthcare professionals, educators and legal practitioners, enabling risk indicators dispersed across healthcare, social welfare, education and law enforcement systems to be identified at an earlier stage.

In relation to legal protection, HKFWC recommends that the Government draw reference from the experiences of England and Wales and New South Wales, Australia, in addressing coercive control, and study the incorporation of Controlling or Coercive Behaviour into the legal framework to address the harm caused by persistent and non-physical forms of abuse. Clearly defining the relevant patterns of behaviour, applicable relationships, evidentiary requirements and protection measures in law would enable women experiencing psychological abuse to receive appropriate protection before the violence escalates.

Community Emergency Mechanisms Must Recognise Gendered Divisions of Labour and Women’s Caregiving Responsibilities

We believe that community emergency mechanisms can strengthen disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities and should be incorporated into the policy direction for the coming five years. HKFWC recommends that the Government incorporate gender mainstreaming into the formulation of climate, disaster management and community emergency response policies, conduct gender impact assessments, identify the risks and needs faced by women during extreme heat, heavy rain, typhoons and other extreme weather events, and establish more comprehensive community support arrangements in every district. These should include cooling and rest spaces, emergency supplies, temporary and emergency respite care, caregiving support and outreach services, with particular attention given to older persons living alone, persons with disabilities, children and their carers.

The Government could also encourage community organisations to establish neighbourhood mutual-support and caregiving networks, provide clear and accessible information about community hazards and emergencies through different channels, and enable women and carers to participate in district disaster planning, risk assessment and emergency drills, allowing their lived experiences to be reflected in community emergency response arrangements. Integrating resilient infrastructure, caregiving support and community mutual aid can strengthen communities’ overall capacity for prevention, response and post-disaster recovery and build more inclusive community resilience.

Advancing AI Development with a Gender Equality Perspective: Enabling Women to Share the Opportunities of AI Transformation

The Government has identified artificial intelligence as an important direction for Hong Kong’s future development in the Five-Year Plan and The Chief Executive’s 2026 Policy Address. The Government proposes to comprehensively advance “AI+”, enhance public AI literacy, implement the “AI for All” Inclusive Programme, and use AI to improve job matching, public services and social welfare services. The Government has also proposed reviewing the risks, application standards and governance standards relating to AI and data and establishing a robust and reliable AI and data governance system.

HKFWC agrees with this policy direction and recommends incorporating a gender equality perspective while promoting wider AI adoption, ensuring that women are not only users of AI services but also have opportunities to become participants in and beneficiaries of technological transformation. AI is changing the labour market and may have a greater adverse impact on women. Research by the International Labour Organization (ILO) indicates that women are more concentrated in clerical, administrative and business support occupations that are more susceptible to the impact of generative AI. Occupations predominantly held by women therefore have a higher level of exposure to AI-driven transformation than occupations predominantly held by men. Hong Kong also faces a similar gender gap in technology education. In the 2025/26 academic year, there were 6,265 women enrolled in engineering and technology programmes funded by the University Grants Committee, accounting for only 29.1% of students, while men accounted for 70.9%.[4]

HKFWC therefore believes that the “AI for All” Inclusive Programme should focus not only on the number of people trained but also on whether different groups can participate meaningfully and benefit in practice. The Government could collaborate with social welfare organisations, educational institutions and businesses to provide flexible, staged and practical AI training for middle-aged women, grassroots women, new arrival women and carers, together with equipment, caregiving and employment support. Apart from teaching the operation of AI tools, the courses could cover job searching, résumé preparation, workflow applications, self-employment and small business development, cybersecurity, personal data protection, fraud prevention and the identification of AI-generated information, enabling women to transform AI into a practical tool for employment, learning and economic autonomy.

AI development must also take account of gender bias and safety risks. Research by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)[5] has shown that some generative AI models reproduce stereotypical associations between women and families, caregiving and traditional gender roles, reflecting how biases in society may be perpetuated through AI training data. When the Government further applies AI to job matching, social welfare, healthcare and other public services, it should address algorithmic bias, data privacy, human review and complaint mechanisms, preventing technological applications from unintentionally deepening existing inequalities.

At the same time, generative AI may be misused to create deepfake images, non-consensual intimate images, online harassment and other forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, posing serious risks to women’s privacy, reputation, mental well-being and personal safety. HKFWC hopes that the Government will incorporate digital safety and gender-based violence into AI literacy and governance policies, strengthening women’s ability to identify and respond to such risks. In relation to the regulation of deepfake technology, HKFWC welcomes the ongoing review of existing laws from the perspective of cyber-enabled crimes by the Cybercrime Sub-committee of the Law Reform Commission (LRC), including the study of ways to address the production of pornographic images using deepfake technology. We hope that the Government will commence the relevant public consultation and legal research as soon as possible, assess whether existing laws provide adequate protection for affected persons, and establish more effective complaint, content-removal, enforcement and support mechanisms. This would prevent technology from being used to infringe privacy, dignity and rights and ensure that AI development proceeds alongside the protection of human rights and gender equality.

Conclusion

HKFWC hopes that Hong Kong’s first Five-Year Plan will establish a more stable direction for economic, social and livelihood policies, while the concrete measures announced in The Chief Executive’s 2026 Policy Address will serve as an important starting point for implementing the Plan. The Government’s proposals to increase carer allowances, strengthen the identification of high-risk carers, promote employment among carers, expand mental health support, advance AI literacy for all and enhance urban climate resilience respond to the changes currently facing Hong Kong society.

HKFWC hopes that the Government will incorporate gender equality into policy formulation, implementation and evaluation over the coming five years and continue to listen to the experiences of women, carers and community organisations. By strengthening public care services, safeguarding women’s economic autonomy, addressing psychological abuse and establishing climate response policies informed by a gender equality perspective, Hong Kong can gradually build a society where women enjoy equal opportunities to participate, make choices and pursue sustainable development.