Has everyone been following the Olympic games [奧運會]? Sometimes you can tell which sport [運動] some athlete [運動員] plays just by their body shape. This got me thinking about Equity [公平] versus Equality [平等]. This can be a very philosophical [哲學性] debate as to which is right or wrong. Let’s start with a sports example.
Say you wanted to improve your swimming abilities [游泳能力], and the government gave everyone the same amount of money to help them with swimming. This would be equality. Equity would be a bit different. Equity is when the government gives certain people (say unprivileged families [貧困家庭]) free access to a swimming pool, or free-swimming gear to poor families, and nothing to people who already naturally have lots of resources for training. The idea of equity is that everyone has different needs, and to help put everyone to the same level, you have to give different people different amounts of support.
In our world of finance, how does this impact us? For example, there are some places where poor families get free healthcare insurance [醫療保險]. In addition, less well-off people get financial benefits from the government if their income does not reach a certain threshold. These are all policies [政策] relating to equity – and not equality, as there are people who don’t receive anything at all. How about equality? Well, in Hong Kong, it is common for the government to give one-off financial pay-outs to everyone if they have too much money.
Is equality or equity better? If you were in a position where you didn’t get any support and you saw others get it, how would you feel? On the flip side, what if you saw everyone getting the same amount of support, but you feel that you should get more because you’re poor, how would you feel? This is definitely a matter of debate and not a straightforward question to answer. You’ve got one week to think about this until my next blog!
