Three-quarters of people in Hong Kong aged 46 or below have ruled out parenthood in the near future, according to a new survey, deterred by lofty housing costs, heavy child-rearing financial burdens and significant time commitments.
The results, based on 447 responses collected from June to August, are being seen as revelatory in the context of deep-rooted demographic challenges facing the city.
Despite the number of the city’s newborns in 2024 rising to 36,767, a 10.5 percent year-on-year increase, Hong Kong’s total fertility rate remains low at 0.8 – far below the replacement threshold of 2.1 percent.
READ MORE: Hong Kong really needs a great many more new babies
Additionally, the population aged 14 and below continued a multiyear decline, dropping 5 percent year-on-year to 373,600 in 2024, according to the Census and Statistics Department.
At a news conference on Thursday morning, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), initiator of the survey, said 78.8 percent of respondents identified housing issues as a key concern swaying their decision to have children, compounded by economic pressures and time constraints, which were cited respectively by 79.7 percent and 77.8 percent of respondents.
The special administrative region’s government has introduced policies to address these pressures, thus far with mixed results.
A program giving priority to families with newborns applying for public rental housing was launched in April 2024. By June 2025, roughly 5,000 eligible applications had been granted a one-year cut in the waiting time under the program; of these, around 420 applications had been successfully housed, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han told lawmakers in mid-July.
For subsidized ownership, about 800 applicants with newborns benefited from another parenthood-friendly program and purchased a flat under the 2024 Home Ownership Scheme.
Inadequate childcare services and a mismatched service timing have long been among the main reasons Hong Kong people do not have children or worry about their ability to provide for them, Ching Ngon-lai, HKFTU’s vice-president, said at the news conference.
Respondents gave the city’s community childcare services an average satisfaction rating of just 2.52, out of 5.
Eleven new government-aided standalone childcare centers are expected to be completed by the end of 2026, Sun said, adding that this should double the scale of service to about 2,000 places. An after-school care program for pre-primary children is also being expanded to more schools.
Respondents’ career ambitions are often perceived to clash with familial duties. Many women are put under intense pressure by childcare needs, lawmaker and HKFTU member Michael Luk Chung-hung said, citing that over 30 percent of surveyed mothers opted to become full-time homemakers or take part-time jobs because of difficulties maintaining work-and-family balance.
In response, the HKFTU Women Affairs Committee proposed measures such as flexible postnatal work arrangements and a six-month protection period after childbirth during which employers are not allowed to lay off new mothers.
READ MORE: Time to encourage fertility with people-oriented approach
Parents said they prefer sustained financial support to a one-off, lump-sum cash incentive, prompting the HKFTU to propose an annual allowance of no less than HK$2,500 ($320) for parents with children under 12. Seventy-two percent of respondents rated “continuous, yearly child-care subsidy” as “an effective” or “very effective” childbirth-encouragement measure.
The SAR government’s current childbirth policies include a one-off HK$20,000 cash incentive for babies born on or after Oct 25, 2023. Sun said that over 49,000 applications had been approved as of end-June 2025, with about HK$979 million disbursed.
In July, the Chinese mainland authorities announced that an annual subsidy of 3,600 yuan ($505) will be granted to each infant born on or after Jan 1, 2025, until they reach the age of three.
Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com
