This study aims to enrich the comprehension of the effect of living density on anxiety and stress among adults in a global city. A random sample of 1,978 Hong Kong adults was interviewed in a cross‐sectional population study in 2014–2015. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were used to investigate the association between housing variables and mental health indicators, namely, anxiety and stress. Logistic regression analysis results have shown that by controlling the confounding effect of demographic variables, income poverty, housing ownership and housing cost, the living density was significantly associated with anxiety and stress of residents. Compared with those living in high density of <7 m2, living in medium density of ≥7 and <13 m2 was significantly associated with lower risk of anxiety (adjusted OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.30–0.88), and the risk was less for those living in low density of ≥13 m2 (adjusted OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.23–0.72). Meanwhile, living in low density of ≥13 m2 was significantly associated with a lower risk of stress (adjusted OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.20–0.97). These results highlighted the significant impact of living density on personal anxiety and stress. Moreover, female, younger adults or those living in income poverty were also at risk of anxiety and stress. In conclusion, our findings implied that improving housing policies, such as building public housing with adequate living areas and market regulation of living density of private housing, would help enhance the mental well‐being of residents.
Informed by autonomist perspectives on precarious work and labour subjectivity, this article discusses the dynamics between autonomy and job precarity. Based on purposive sampling, the qualitative findings, drawn from interviews with precarious workers aged 18–29 years in Hong Kong, reveal tensions among four types of aspirations. First, the desire for achieving freedom and individual ambition in work made the respondents critical of the notion of employment-related stability. Second, a determination to break with mainstream career paths empowered young people to take alternative pathways to new modes of work and life. Third, precarious employment was seen as a stepping stone for realising plans for travel or study. Finally, tolerance of precarity was perceived as a transitional stage in their striving for future stability. However, the findings also show the structured dilemmas experienced by young workers regarding the complex relationship between autonomy and precarity in a neoliberal labour market. Some young workers pursued work–life autonomy, constrained by precarious employment relations, acknowledging and bearing the costs, while some strategically used precarity in individual negotiations with employers to realise their goals. This article analyses young workers’ subjectivity through the lenses of autonomy and age and pushes the boundary of precarity studies beyond an implicit dichotomy between determinism and voluntarism. JEL codes: I38, J38, J62
With an emphasis placed on supply‐side interventions such as skills training and incentives enhancement, active labor market polices (ALMPs) are strongly promoted by international organizations and widely adopted across different welfare regimes to boost employment rates. This article first presents the under‐examined relationship between ALMPs and employment precariousness, which has posed a challenge to the neoliberal notion of employability and activation. Youth‐focused employment policies tend to speed up employment entry whilst downplaying the risk of precariousness and the importance of job quality, and thus further reinforcing the belief that engaging in precarious employment is tolerable if not inevitable. The article then examines the case of Hong Kong, which illustrates that its relatively low rate of youth unemployment may conceal the unfavorable employment conditions confronted by youth. It is argued that the service‐led employment policies and short‐term vocational training define the employability of young workers in terms of labor flexibilities. The coined phase of “flexi‐employability” is characterized by promoting youth's readiness for, and adaptability to, the volatilities and changing demands of the labor market. Arguably, the disciplinary approach to youth activation would only strengthen the work‐first principle by enforcing young people to take up jobs available and leave welfare as soon as possible, but without thoroughly addressing the risks and insecurities generated by the labor market in undermining their well‐being.
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