Caseloads in Hong Kong in Figures are year-end; payments are financial-year totals. At end-2025: CSSA 194,000 cases, Disability Allowance 185,000, Old Age Allowance 375,000, Old Age Living Allowance 794,000. CSSA payments in 2024–25 were HK$22.353 billion.
The Guangdong and Fujian Schemes are listed separately and are much smaller than the local Old Age Allowance and OALA. This site does not add the schemes together as a headcount of welfare recipients; overlap rules belong in Social Welfare Department texts.
The Social Welfare Department publishes yearly case statistics broken down by District Council district and by scheme, plus application and disbursement figures for targeted programmes such as funeral assistance, short-term food assistance and the Low-income Family Allowance. Fee-waiver applications for medical services, as well as waiting times and throughput for residential care and day-care services, are also released quarterly or annually by SWD or the Hospital Authority. These granular statistics are not yet enumerated item by item here.
Policy blocks around youth employment, working low-income families and child welfare draw on separate data releases from the Labour Department, the Labour and Welfare Bureau and the Education Bureau, and are not directly additive. The Working Income Allowance Scheme (WIAS) and CSSA are both cash support, but have different asset tests and income-threshold bases; this site currently lists only aggregate caseloads and has not split those sub-items.
Official hard figures not yet recorded (all carry an explicit year): (1) SWD statistics by DC district and by scheme (CSSA, Disability Allowance, OALA, etc.) for both caseloads and payments; (2) SWD application and disbursement figures for funeral assistance, short-term food assistance, Low-income Family Allowance and medical fee waivers; (3) SWD residential care and day-care service waiting times and throughput by year; (4) Labour Department youth employment programmes and WIAS beneficiary numbers, income thresholds and payment amounts. Deliberately left blank: unverified NGO service statistics and subjective poverty-line interpretations are deliberately not cited.
The published “average waiting time” covers only general applicants allotted flats in the past 12 months — families and elderly one-person applicants. Non-elderly one-person applicants are handled under the Quota and Points System and usually wait longer.
Under the Employment Ordinance (Cap 57), sick leave must last at least 4 consecutive days and be supported by a medical certificate to qualify for sickness allowance. Paid sick days accrue at 2 per month for the first 12 months then 4 thereafter, up to a cap of 120 days; the allowance is 4/5 of the average daily wage over the preceding 12 months.
Public A&E services are charged under the Hospital Authority’s official fee schedule, at different rates for eligible and non-eligible persons. The amount is revised over time, so the published schedule governs.
There is no single figure: a CSSA payment combines a standard rate (by household size and category) with supplements and special grants such as rent and schooling. In 2024/25 there were 194,000 CSSA cases and HK$22.353 billion was paid out.
Expectation of life at birth is 83.3 years for men and 88.7 years for women (provisional) — among the highest in the world. Very low infant and mid-life mortality, accessible public healthcare, strong communicable-disease control and comparatively low smoking rates all contribute.
Social security and welfare in Hong Kong are mainly administered by the Social Welfare Department. The Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme is the safety net of last resort. Old Age Allowance (“Fruit Subsidy”), the Ordinary and Higher Old Age Living Allowances target the elderly; additional pillars include home care, residential homes and the Community Care Fund.
The ten leading causes of death, including cancer, are counted by the Department of Health from the principal cause confirmed at death registration and published annually. Cancer incidence cases, by contrast, are compiled by the Hong Kong Cancer Registry from the registry. The two bases, reference dates and methods differ and must not be subtracted or added together.
Registered counts of doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and Chinese-medicine practitioners are published annually by the relevant statutory regulators, such as the Medical Council, the Nursing Council, the Dental Council, the Pharmacy and Poisons Board and the Chinese Medicine Council, all with explicit years.
The DH Student Health Service publishes yearly figures on child obesity, while DH runs population health surveys on chronic-disease prevalence and the CHP issues communicable-disease notifications — all official health data with clear years and methods.
According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong’s crude divorce rate in 2025 was about 2.59 per 1,000 persons aged 15 and over — roughly 2.6 divorces per thousand people of that age.
As of June 2026, Hong Kong's Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) had 194,548 cases and 256,732 recipients. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, CSSA payments totalled HK$22.353 billion.
相關年鑑年份 Yearbook years
延伸閱讀 Further reading
適合學術引用嘅參考文獻：官方出版物、政府報告、學術著作。每項附引用格式同研究價值說明。
政府報告 Report
社會福利署。《社會福利署年報》。取自 https://www.swd.gov.hk/
Social Welfare Department. SWD Annual Reports. Retrieved from https://www.swd.gov.hk/
社會保障嘅官方報告。
Official reports on social security.
學術著作 Scholarly
Wilding, P., Huque, A. S. & Tao, J. P. L. (1997). Social Policy in Hong Kong. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Wilding, P., Huque, A. S. & Tao, J. P. L. (1997). Social Policy in Hong Kong. Edward Elgar.
Social Welfare Department. Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme. Retrieved from https://www.swd.gov.hk/en/pubsvc/socsecu/comprehens/cssa/
綜援申請資格、津貼額同社會保障細節嘅官方說明。
The official guide to CSSA eligibility, payment rates and social-security details.
