The development of time banking in Hong Kong

Abstract

This literature review paper examined the development of time banking in Hong Kong. Time banking is a system of transaction using time. Members of a time bank can earn time credits through work which they can spend these credits later. Time banking has become an international movement with participants included people in different age groups, local businesses, staff from participating organizations and even the organizations themselves. This diversity of time banking systems in different areas showed modifications of time banking systems can increase their uses, functions and effectiveness, and also can improve their versatility so as to provide tailor-made applications on different problems in different situations. Although around half a century has passed after the first time bank appeared (Miller, 2008), there was only one time bank in Hong Kong involving the elderly care service and the number of participants were less than 200 (Tsui, 2018; Ho, 2018; Lee, 2018). To improve this situation it is necessary to see whether it is possible to modify the present time banking system so that more extensive and effective applications can be provided. The present paper will address this gap of knowledge through proposing a time banking system on young people with the novel time credit multiplier concept with an aim to alleviate the serious and ever increasing manpower shortage problem of the elderly care services in Hong Kong.