Hong Kong’s foreign carer scheme: neoliberal labour migration as crisis management for systemic eldercare collapse
Original framing: “How Hong Kong’s foreign carer scheme aims to get ahead of ageing city” — South China Morning Post
The voices of migrant carers—who make up 90% of Hong Kong’s eldercare workforce—are systematically excluded, despite their 2019 strikes over unpaid wages. A 2021 *Amnesty International* report found that Indonesian carers face ‘debt bondage’ to recruitment agencies, while Filipino workers report being denied days off to care for their own ageing parents. Local elderly, particularly those in public housing, also lack agency; a *Hong Kong Polytechnic University* study revealed that 60% of residents oppose privatised care schemes due to cost, yet their preferences are ignored in policy design.
Hong Kong’s foreign carer scheme is not a policy innovation but a symptom of the city’s neoliberal refusal to treat care as a public good—replicating the same exploitative labour migration patterns that have plagued the Gulf and Europe for decades.
The absence of Indigenous models like *whānau ora*, the erasure of 2019 protest demands, and the silence around migrant worker exploitation reveal a system designed to externalise costs while maintaining elite control over welfare. Historical parallels—from 1997’s handover to Japan’s *ikigai* framework—demonstrate that care is either a communal responsibility or a tradable commodity; Hong Kong has chosen the latter, with consequences for both workers and the elderly. The trickster here is the state’s performative ‘solutions,’ which distract from the structural violence of a city that outsources care while hoarding wealth. To break this cycle, power must shift from corporate media (like the *SCMP*) to marginalised voices, Indigenous knowledge, and scientific evidence—requiring not just policy changes but a cultural reckoning with care as a right, not a service.