CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: THE SOCIAL WELFARE
DEPARTMENT
In order to appreciate the problems of social welfare in Hong Kong it is necessary to have some knowledge of the social and economic conditions which have been created by the influx of very large numbers of persons from the mainland of China which started in 1949 when the Communist armies crossed the Yangtze. It is estimated that since that date over one million persons have entered Hong Kong from China and this movement still continues. Moreover the birth rate has continued to rise and the death rate to fall, the excess of registered births over registered deaths in 1958 being 86,000 as against 75,000 for the previous year. Many other countries today have a population problem but nowhere is it more acute than in Hong Kong where the population, now estimated at nearly three millions, has almost doubled in ten years. It is not surprising therefore that the expansion of social services in the fields of education, medical services, low-cost housing and social welfare has not kept pace with the population growth. There has also inevitably been an increase in the number of persons unable to support their families adequately because of the difficulty of obtaining full-time employment all the year round. These social conditions have led to an increase in the number of children being abandoned by their parents and in the number of destitutes requiring relief feeding. They have also led to an increase in juvenile delinquency which is, however, by no means as serious a problem as it is now in many countries with a higher general standard of living.
2. In Hong Kong the Government started to take a direct part in social welfare work in 1948 when the Social Welfare Office was created as a branch of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. In January 1958 it became the Social Welfare Department and the statutory functions and powers in connexion with social welfare were transferred from the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs to the Director of Social Welfare, the most important being those relating to adoption and the protection of children, young persons and women (See Appendix 1). The Department
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