We have all heard stories of Chinese migrant workers who leave their rural homes and travel hundreds of kilometres to the big city in order to earn a few hundred dollars a month. If they get sick, it means no work and no money, no food for their family and no money for their children to go to school.
In Britain, on the other hand, 2.64 million people of working-age claim they are too sick to work, citing illnesses such as alcoholism and depression. In some cases, both parents in a family have not worked for more than 30 years, relying on social benefits to raise their children.
Most western countries have social welfare policies. They provide national insurance to help people who are unemployed and make sure they have enough money to live.
The system is designed to help them get through hard times by granting allowances for food and other basic necessities. The downside is a hand-out culture in which a substantial amount of people choose not to be employed and as such live on public money.
The situation in Britain is an example. Almost 3.4 million unemployed people claim work benefits such as income support and job seeking allowances for two years or more.
About 15.6 per cent of more than 24 million households are economically inactive - no adults in the family have long-term employment. In some regions the figure is as high as 20 per cent, or one in five families.
A married couple that qualifies for incapacity benefits receives GBP84.50 (HK$1,183) every week, not including extra benefits for each child and housing. A family with numerous children might have as much income as a normal working person. But experts believe at least two thirds of those claiming incapacity through sickness, which covers more than 400 types of physical and mental illnesses and costs the government more than GBP7 billion a year, are capable of working.
