Many people argued that there is alleged abuse of CSSA recently. They regards (or even label) the CSSA recipients are lazy and abusing the CSSA. In the symbolic interactions perspective, the cause of social problem is related to how meaning is created and given to that problematic behavior by the individuals in relation to his/her own self-concept/ interest. That can be explained by labeling theory. I am going to talk about the causes and effects of Labeling of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme.

First of all, the Government starts to create labeling the CSSA recipient for reducing their expenditure or other purposes. In 1998, there is a review on CSSA was done by Social Welfare Department.[1] The review is full of “Having a job is better than none”, “Low wage is better than no wage”,”CSSA should be the last choice” and these kinds of statements against the CSSA recipients. Actually, those negative and misleading messages are continuously spreading to the public by the government by different means from the past to now. Thus, the public have an image that there were many people abusing CSSA, “CSSA feeds the lazy”.

As we all know, Hong Kongers believed on self-reliance. When the Government implies that CSSA feeds the lazy, Hong Kong people would have negative feeling on CSSA recipients as their act was against the beliefs of Hong Kong people–self-reliance.

Secondly, the Mass Media had helped the labeling act. The reports done by the media about the CSSA recipients are mostly negative, e.g. abuse of CSSA, crimes of the CSSA recipients, the increasing expenditure of CSSA which claimed because of the abuse of CSSA,

From the attitude of media, we can see that the CSSA recipients were treated as offenders. The CSSA recipients are considered as lazy and abusing CSSA. Due to the rule created and applied by the society, the action of applying CSSA became a deviant behavior and people labeled the CSSA recipients as outsiders.

The effects of labeling are the misunderstanding of the public and Social Exclusion.

The public had misunderstanding and no idea on the situation of the abuse of CSSA. Most of them are affected by the media, thus they label the CSSA recipients as the media did. From a survey on public views on CSSA recipients[2], 82% of interviewees got the information of CSSA from the media. 50.6% of them agreed that “CSSA feeds the lazy”. In fact the proportional of unemployed CSSA recipients among all the CSSA Recipient is just about 10% recently. It is better to say that “CSSA is feeding the needs” but not lazy.

Most of the labeling act in the public was due to misunderstanding and stereotyping. In fact, there are just a small proportional of unemployed CSSA recipients among all the CSSA recipients. “CSSA feeds the lazy” is not support by the fact. That matches what outsiders theory said,” Some people may be labeled deviant who in fact have not broken a rule.”[3]

Furthermore, social exclusion is another effect of labeling. Form a survey on psychological conditions of children of the CSSA Recipients[4] and a survey on CSSA recipients’ self images, we can notice that labeling could badly affect the psychological conditions and the self images of the people being labeling. These people felt negative on themselves. About 70 % of them thought that there were less and fewer friends that they could talk with and their friends would make discrimination against them. More than half of them thought that their friends would look down on them. Also, 70% of them are afraid of being known by others that they are CSSA recipient. These made them don’t want to contact with the others.

As a result, they isolated themselves from the others. They don’t want to contact with their friends, their family or even the society. Finally lead to social exclusion. They were being excluded from the society.

To conclude, the government and the media help to give a meaning of applying CSSA as alleged abuse and laziness (labeling). That leads to the problem of misunderstanding of the public and the social exclusion. In fact, applying CSSA is not a bad behavior as most of the CSSA recipients need it to support their basic needs.

[1] Social Welfare Department, HKSAR. (1998). Support for Self-reliance – Report on Review of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme [visited at 01/12/2011] http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr98-99/chinese/panels/ws/papers/anx2402.htm [2] Lo, W.Y. et al. (2000). Project U – Survey on Public Views on CSSA Recipients. Hong Kong: Hong Kong City University.

[3] Rubington, E. and Weinberg, M.S.(1995). The Study of Social Problems: Seven Perspectives. NY: Oxford University Press. p.187

[4] Yau, Y.L., Wong K.Y. and Chiu, C.H. (2001). Comparative Survey on Psychological Conditions between Ordinary Children and Children of CSSA Recipients. Hong Kong: BGCA.