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China began its social security reform when the market‐oriented economy was first promoted in the late 1970s. Initiatives have been taken to replace the employer‐based labour insurance model with a largely social insurance model. However, it is a mistake to argue that China is pursuing a neo‐liberal agenda in its social initiatives. Instead, the state has played a major role in the process. Based on a developmental analysis, it is argued that the direction of change is generally encouraging. The emerging social insurance programme has the following advantages: it widens coverage, facilitates economic development, seeks a minimum entitlement, fosters social integration, and enhances individual participation and responsibility. The creation of an economically and socially viable social insurance programme will support the economic development of the country in the twenty‐first century.

Objective: Despite past findings about the contribution of home care services to older users' functional ability, the effective processes and components of the services are not transparent. Such processes appear to rely on the actual use of component services of the home care program. Method: The study gathered 116 observations during 2 years concerning 49 home care service users in Hong Kong. Results: The study shows that an older user maintained better functional ability with a longer time of using a home care program in Hong Kong using the service. The time effect, in turn, was primarily due to the increased use of seven services provided by the program. Among the service components, the home-nursing services generated a unique contribution to the user's functional ability, with its prior score controlled. Conclusions: Multidisciplinary services under case management underpin an effective home care program.

This article presents the findings of a study on age discrimination against older workers in Hong Kong. The study collected survey data from 787 older workers aged 45 or above and 283 employers who were managers responsible for personnel or human resources management, or for hiring people for organizations. The focus is on revealing the influences of the organizational goals of profit-making and social responsibility on age discrimination, along with influences from negative stereotyping and other factors. Results indicate that the social responsibility goal tends to be more influential than negative stereotyping on age discrimination. In contrast, the profit-making goal did not display a significant effect on age discrimination. They offer implications for policies and practices for managing the ageing workforce in the labour market.