About the Webinar:
The study explores the gendered effects of family care responsibilities on employment outcomes of job candidates in Hong Kong, in the frameworks of market meritocracy and family moral virtuocracy. The authors adopt a mixed-methods research design, which includes a CV-based survey (n=102), 20 in-depth interviews, and one focus group session of 9 participants with various employers in Hong Kong. The results show that fathers and caregivers of ageing parents receive favorable evaluations and treatments in the combining power of market meritocracy and moral virtuocracy; mothers are evaluated as possessing market merits but are not favored in job offers. Sub-group analyses and qualitative data further demonstrate that market meritocracy fails to function for virtuous female caregivers in employment opportunities, largely due to structural and cultural barriers in the labor market, instead of stereotypes as often believed. This fundamental inequality needs to be addressed with policy interventions.

About the Speaker:
Haijing Dai is an associate professor at the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD in social work and sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her main research interests include comparative social welfare development, grassroots community organizing, gender and employment, and social change in contemporary China.