Inclusion or exclusion? Housing battered women in Hong Kong

Since the mid-1990s, 'social exclusion' has become a popular concept in social policy analysis. As a result, there are increasing concerns about developing a social inclusion policy. Using housing policies and services for battered women in Hong Kong as an example, this article demonstrates how policy and services claiming to help the disadvantaged actually contribute to reinforcing social exclusion. By focusing on a particular policy in a particular society and in a specific cultural context, this article and the authors' research on which it draws shed light on the complicated process of how social policy has contributed to the construction of social exclusion.