TNAG-1665-FCO40-2314-Hong-Kong-employment-issues-and-ordinances-foreign-domestic-1987 — Page 2

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Employers of FDHS would be allowed to continue employ the FDHS they are employing, on two year contracts. a contract were broken ΟΥ not renewed, then permission to employ a FDH would be given to the first potential employer on a waiting list. The former employer would have to join the back of the queue if he wished to have another FDH. That an employer be allowed an immediate replacement if the termination of the contract was not his fault has been considered. Such a provision would be very difficult to administer. The Immigration Department would have to decide who was

at fault when a contract was broken. Employers would be tempted to abuse the system particularly when the demand for replacement FDHs was great, by arranging for contracts be broken by FDHs So that a third party could take her on while the original employer could then quickly find a replacement.

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When considering XCC(86)191, some Members were particularly concerned at the implications of any limit on the numbers of FDHs on the working female population of

of Hong Kong. In practice the implications of what is now proposed are not easy to determine. The results of the census of 1981 show that working females with university degrees were equivalent to 71% of the female population with university degrees. The equivalent proportion in respect of females with qualifications from the Polytechnic and the technical institutes was 67%. By 1986, when there was a by-census, the proportions had increased to 78% and 71%

and 71% respectively. In absolute terms the number of working females in these two groups increased between 1981 and 1986 by 38,700. In 1981 the number of ever married women working was 471,503 out of a total of 1,204,820 ever married women. By 1986 the numbers were 585,239 and 1,409,269 respectively. Over the same period the number of FDHS increased by 13,200.

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In other words over the last few years there has been a significant increase in both relative and absolute terms in the working female population. The absolute figures are appreciably more significant than the increase in the number of FDHs. This fact tends to support the view that whether or not she can get domestic help is not the determining factor for whether a female on getting married continues working or not (the proponents of this theory argue that the decisive factor is whether or not she wants to continue working). What FDHS do is to make life easier for her once she has made

up her mind. If this theory is correct then the consequences of the present proposals in terms of the size of the working female population should not be particularly significant.