-39the 22-59 age group, 95% of new arrival CSSA recipients were women.100 This pattern has continued so that new arrival recipients of CSSA are overwhelmingly likely to be women; and likely to be Mainland spouses reunited with their families in Hong Kong. They are likely to be looking after children who have the right of abode, and are therefore likely to be unable, or to have very limited capacity, to take up outside employment. In playing their role, they make a valuable contribution to our society, helping rejuvenate our ageing population, helping to integrate children with right of abode into our community and helping to avoid the socially disruptive consequences of split families. They are persons who, on the Director’s own means test, are unable to meet their basic needs. In such circumstances, it appears arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable to exclude them from CSSA benefits for seven years because of some notion that they should only receive such benefits in exchange for seven years’ worth of contribution to our economy. 107. But even where a Hong Kong resident, having arrived as holder of a OWP, is unable to work and is simply indigent, the idea of requiring him or her to contribute to our economy for seven years before being allowed to draw CSSA makes little sense. The realistic view is that such person will need to draw upon, rather than make contributions to, our economic resources in the same way as an indigent permanent resident does. It is illusory to think that adoption of a seven-year eligibility criterion is somehow going to turn such a person into a net contributor to the economy. 108. The idea of requiring seven years’ contribution to the economy as a condition of receiving CSSA is in truth a rejection of the principle, accepted in Hong Kong since 1970, that social welfare is the responsibility of the 100 LC Paper No CB(2)1401/02-03(03), §24 for discussion 10 March 2003.