According to the world population clock, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain are among the top jurisdictions with the lowest fertility rates.

While there are differences from place to place, Asian parenting is generally characterized by an emphasis on filial piety and hierarchical command structure, an emphasis on education and academic achievement, subtle rather than direct expressions of love, and use of shame and guilt as a motivational method. Many Chinese parents expect their children to follow their orders and routinely impose their views on their children. Many Hong Kong parents are overly protective, and rarely do they ask their children to share housework. They even take so much care of their kids that their children do not know how to take care of themselves. When the children enter their teens, their parents find they are not only unable to take care of themselves but also rebellious. From my studies on children’s happiness over the years, Hong Kong children’s happiness generally declines after they become adolescents.

One recent story that happened in Hong Kong is particularly heartbreaking. In June, a 48-year-old mom had a clash with her 12-year-old daughter over educational matters in the morning. The mother was found to have fallen to her death soon after. She was a social worker by profession and worked in a public hospital in psychiatric counselling. Notwithstanding counselling services that the daughter quickly received, she also jumped to her death within 10 hours of her mom’s apparent suicide. This scary story, among many other unhappy stories, is in my mind a key contributory factor behind Hong Kong’s falling fertility rate. Many parents simply do not know how to handle their emotions and how to build good relations with their children.

Many parents may say that they do not put pressure on their children. But they cannot hide their disappointment when their children’s academic results are not up to expectations. Many parents also ask their children not to spend too much time playing online games but they themselves are addicted to these games. If parents cannot discipline themselves and cannot control their own emotions, how can they set a good example for their children? If young people are struggling to find jobs, or are unhappy in their place of work, or do not know how to deal with online bullying, or are finding housing costs too onerous, they would not want to have children.

For all these reasons, I recommend two things to raise Hong Kong’s fertility rate. First is providing quality life education to all school children from primary school to university. Life education must also cover education on parenting and sexuality. Life education is all about helping children to find meaning in life and realize their own potential. Children must learn how to take care of themselves mentally and physically. This is self-love. Children must learn to put themselves in the position of others, including their parents, and their classmates, to generate empathy. Everybody must realize that as humans we all have weaknesses that need to be overcome, and that this is a lifelong struggle. They must learn that this lifelong struggle will bring long-term rewards, which will make life worth living.

I have long championed making parenting and sexuality education an important part of the school curriculum. I really hope the SAR government will take this up. Parenting education cannot wait after young people have their children. First, without the skills to tackle the problems faced by parents, many would not want to be parents. Second, working parents who often labor for long hours simply may not have time to attend parenting workshops. Third, some parents may not care at all and it is exactly these people who need parenting education the most.

I have been arguing that sexuality education must be part of life education. Treated in isolation, students will not see sexuality education in the proper perspective that we must respect life and respect all people’s rights as we want our own respected.

Another important policy that I highly recommend is to make all permanent resident families have a guaranteed right to buy a basic Home Ownership Scheme flat at an affordable price, defined as eight times the annual median income of economically active households, and to raise the income ceiling for Public Rental Housing applicants by 50 percent, while at the same time evict households earning double this income limit. This will make housing affordable and readily available to young people. The basic HOS flats are no more than 400 square feet apiece and will not occupy pricy land. This is to ensure public fiscal sustainability. The non-prime location and requirements for occupation and no ownership of other properties ensure that the self-selection mechanism will work, so we can do away with a means test.

Now I shall come to what we should not do. I strongly object to financial rewards to have more children. Reason one, all the statistics show that this does not seem to work. Reason two, it could only work counterproductively: encouraging those who have no intention of having kids to have kids. We simply do not want people who do not have the heart to be parents to become parents.

The author is an honorary research fellow at the Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Institute, Lingnan University, and an adjunct professor at the Academy for Applied Policy Studies and Education Futures, the Education University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.