In the weeks leading up to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s 2025 Policy Address, concerns about Hong Kong’s abysmal fertility rate, its ramifications and suggestions for appropriate policy actions wove a consistent thread through relevant statistical reports, surveys and discussions at the Legislative Council.  

As widely known, the city’s fertility rate stood at 0.841 in 2024 as per official data, far below the 2.1 level required for population replacement. What is alarming is that survey after survey indicates that a significant proportion of people of child-bearing age are ruling out parenthood altogether, citing financial, housing and work-life pressures. While prudence and forethought should ideally guide all major life decisions, it is a sad reflection on our times that milestones that so easily mapped the path through adulthood until a generation earlier are now deemed so unattainable that many are effectively stamping out their aspirations to become parents.

Since women tend to or ideally should take informed reproductive and fertility decisions in any modern society, the discourse on low fertility will perhaps benefit more from a shift of focus to the “female gaze” involving conception, childbearing, child-rearing and attendant challenges.    

In a population policy consultation document issued by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government in 2014, and cited in a LegCo research report, major factors underpinning low birth rates have been cited as “better education of women, which probably led to increased opportunity costs of childbirth; the psychological and social pressure of childrearing; and gender inequality that placed child care responsibility mostly on women...”

While much has been said in wider discourse, possibly conveniently, about opportunity costs vis-a-vis rising educational attainment among women, what often receives no more than lip service is that women shoulder the lion’s share of child care responsibilities. What is even less spoken about is the challenges of a working mother.

That is not how it should be.

In a speech to celebrate International Women’s Day in March this year, the chief executive said that “a whopping 60 percent of our top civil servants are female. Over half of Hong Kong’s accountants and lawyers are female, while some 40 percent of our managers are women.”

Yet, Hong Kong’s overall labor force participation rate (LFPR) for females aged 15 and above stood at 52.3 percent in 2024 — lower than 62.8 percent in Singapore and 57.92 percent in Macao in the 16-64 age group. Government data makes it clear that LFPR was lower for females than for males in each age group in 2024, except for the 15-24 cohort.

A LegCo fact sheet released in April indicates that for prime-aged women between 25 and 54, “their work propensity bears a strong negative relationship with marriages and childbirths”. It cites census data to indicate that 426,600 prime-aged females are economically inactive, with 78 percent of them listing engagement in household duties, including child-rearing, as the key factor holding them back from work.

The overall LFPR of local prime-aged women plateaued at around 72.5 percent in 2024, following a marked uptick after 1997, but remains far below 92.2 percent for males in the same age group. It is necessary to point out that the number of never-married women aged 40 and above (excluding foreign domestic helpers) increased by almost 240 percent between 2001 and 2020, “markedly outpacing the 60 percent increase for the overall female population aged 40 and above”, according to a LegCo information note from 2022. Evidently, a larger share of the never-married cohort boosted the overall LFPR of prime-aged women. If we take a look at a report issued by the Office of the Government Economist in August 2024, two things stand out: Ever-married prime-aged women living with children had a lower LFPR owing to child care responsibilities, while there was a higher LFPR among ever-married women living with foreign domestic helpers. Clearly, assured help with child care is pivotal in a mother’s decision to work or come back to work.

The LegCo fact sheet does stress that global empirical studies have assessed the importance of child care services, finding them to have a “greater effect” on boosting women’s LFPR than other policy initiatives.  

Any working mother should be able to relate to this. Every working mother quietly budgets for possible, unforeseen disruptions to professional commitments owing to child care demands. Every working mother silently hopes she will not be judged or deemed less of a professional for that. Reproductive decisions are long-term and other than financial and housing considerations, income security and a supportive environment that values and facilitates quality child care while balancing a mother’s familial and professional aspirations likely remain the flagship factors in a modern, educated woman’s choice to start a family.

The findings of a Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions survey released in early September indicate that the city’s community child care services received an average satisfaction rating of just 2.52 out of five from respondents. Also, 30 percent of surveyed mothers opted to become full-time homemakers or take part-time jobs because of difficulties maintaining a work-family balance.

Not only that. It is telling that of the 472 complaints the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) handled under the Sex Discrimination Ordinance in 2021-22, 82 percent stemmed from workplace discrimination with most related to pregnancy discrimination (109 cases) and sexual harassment (202 cases). The EOC says one in five mothers reported experiencing discrimination during pregnancy, maternity leave and/or within the first year of returning to work, and that only 17 percent of employers reported having implemented family-friendly measures in the workplace.  

In a report issued in August, the EOC cited the Suicide Prevention Services’ April survey findings that 50.1 percent of working carers reported experiencing high levels of stress, “showing that work status has a profound effect on stress levels when family caregiving is considered”. It also quoted Baptist Oi Kwan Social Service’s July survey results on carers’ pressure, indicating that 10 percent of full-time employees spend more than 41 and up to 60 hours per week on taking care of family members, effectively doing “double full-time”.

It takes a whole city to raise a child. While policy initiatives set up a structural framework, it requires a wide shift in mindset that respects childbirth not just as a personal choice and an isolated female prerogative but also recognizes societal commitment and institutional oversight as integral to making it easier to welcome babies.

Let’s try to make it easier for 21st century mothers. And yes, we owe it to future generations.  

The author is an award-winning English-language fiction writer and current-affairs commentator.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.