Hong Kong births sink to lowest in 56 years, experts predict dire impact on aging society

Elderly men wearing face masks take a rest on a street in Hong Kong, Feb. 26. AP-Yonhap

The number of births in Hong Kong hit a record low last year, falling below 40,000 for the first time in more than five decades, with experts warning of wide-reaching implications for the city's aging population.

They said the trend would result in shrinking enrolment at every level of education, eventually affecting manpower supply in future.

The early education sector was already feeling the effects, with seven kindergartens closing by the end of the current academic year. A spokesman for the Education Bureau said one of the kindergartens would merge with another school.

Latest data from the Census and Statistics Department showed that only 38,684 babies were born last year, sliding 8 percent from 2020. That not only marked the seventh consecutive year of decline, but also the lowest point since official figures became available in 1966.

Chow Wai-chun, president of the Early Childhood Educators Association, said there was little chance of the birthrate improving until the Covid-19 pandemic ended.

She said the current situation was worse than in 2003, when the SARS epidemic hit the city. There were 47,687 babies that year, only slightly lower than 48,119 in 2002.

Pedestrians walk past a government public notice banner for the National Security Law in Hong Kong in this file photo taken July 15, 2020. AFP-Yonhap

Compounding the situation was the ongoing wave of emigration sparked by Beijing's imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 and its tightening grip on the city's political affairs.

The Post reported last December that Hong Kong's primary and secondary schools lost about 6,200 students in the first four months after the summer holidays, according to official data. Most were likely to have withdrawn to migrate with their families.

Chow said: "We used to handle withdrawal applications when the second term ended, but now we're receiving applications every month, something not seen in the past."

With fewer babies born, kindergartens paying high rents for their campuses faced a greater risk of closing down, she noted.

The birthrate might turn around if the government increased tax allowances for newborn babies and children, Chow argued. It might also help if the current half-day subsidy to cover kindergarten fees was changed to a whole-day subsidy, to ease the burden on working parents.

Population expert Paul Yip Siu-fai has sounded the alarm over the birth numbers for years now, and especially since 2020, when Hong Kong began recording more deaths than births. Official figures showed about 8,700 more deaths than births in 2020, widening by almost 50 percent to 12,900 more deaths last year.

"The lowest number of births last year only deepened the situation the year before but going below 40,000 is really low," said Yip, chair professor in social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong and a former adviser to the government on population issues.

He did not expect the city's birth numbers to be promising in the next three years and said the prolonged pandemic also discouraged couples from having babies.

Agreeing that the wave of emigration had worsened the baby situation, he said: "The people who moved out from Hong Kong last year were mainly young couples and professionals and therefore the downward trend is going to continue."

Yip said the pandemic had also resulted in a drop in the number of Hong Kongers marrying mainland Chinese, who prefer having a baby soon after marriage.

Children accompanied with their parents wearing face masks line up to receive China's Sinovac COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at a community vaccination center in Hong Kong, Feb. 27. AP-Yonhap

The number of all marriages in Hong Kong fell from about 44,000 in 2019 to almost 28,000 in 2020, before slipping further to a record low of 27,000 last year. Cross-border marriages, with either partner from the mainland, plummeted from 13,262 in 2019 to 3,266 in 2020.

Yip warned that the declining number of births would have a domino effect ― first affecting kindergartens, then primary and secondary schools and universities, before ultimately hitting the labor force.

For several years early this century, Hong Kong's baby numbers received a big boost from mainland Chinese women who chose to give birth in the city as their children could then enjoy the benefits of being residents.

Thanks largely to them, births in Hong Kong shot up between 2005 and 2012, peaking at about 95,000 babies in 2011.

But there were growing complaints that Hong Kong women were finding it hard to book hospital beds to give birth, and concerns that the mainlanders' children would put pressure on the city's health care, education and welfare services.

Former chief executive Leung Chun-ying put a stop to mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong from 2013, unless they were married to residents. The move was reflected in the baby data right away, with the number of births plunging from 91,343 in 2012 to 57,623 in 2013.

Four years later, the pro-Beijing think tank Hong Kong Vision Project, led by former Legislative Council President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, called for the ban to be scrapped, estimating that the city would benefit by having 25,000 more babies a year. The government rejected the suggestion.

People queue on a street for COVID-19 test kits in Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po area, Feb. 27, as yet another record high number of new infections were recorded in the city. AFP-Yonhap

Population expert Yip said reversing the ban now was unlikely to work as Hong Kong was no longer as attractive to mainlanders as in the past.

He said young couples in Hong Kong were put off from starting families because of the education system, tiny living spaces and recent developments in the city.

"We should not bury our heads in the sand," he said. "People have legitimate reasons for preferring not to have babies and the government should allay the concerns raised by those leaving the city."

While it would be right to raise allowances to ease the financial burden on parents, he added, couples would not have babies because of an allowance.

Communications manager Matt Leung, 40, who got married in 2019 when Hong Kong was hit by months of social unrest, said he and his wife decided against starting a family after considering the city's political and social situation.

"My wife and I all along disliked the education system, and we became more determined not to have a baby after the National Security Law was implemented," he said.

The couple have since made plans to emigrate, and now are planning to have a baby next year, after they settle in Canada.