Opinion | How healthcare and policy reform can help increasingly elderly Hong Kong age gracefully

Cultural and economic factors render the trend of an ageing population difficult to remedy, but Hong Kong can take steps to ease its burden

Keeping the elderly working and socially active, reforming the healthcare sector and incentivising couples to have children are among the city’s options

Reading Time:4 minutes

A man rides a bicycle through Causeway Bay on September 15. Keeping elderly people physically and socially active could help Hong Kong ease some of the costs of its increasingly aged population. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 8:15am, 6 Oct 2022

Many developed countries face the demographic challenges of an ageing population. With almost 30 per cent of its population being 65 or older, Japan is ahead of the world in this trend which other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are expected to face soon. A healthy population pyramid is sustained by a fertility rate of roughly 2.1 births per woman.

While the population structure of Japan will remain fairly similar during the next decade, Hong Kong seems likely to follow a drift towards an inverted population pyramid. That is because people in Generation X and millennials are showing little interest in having babies. According to World Bank data, Hong Kong’s fertility rate of 0.9 is well below that of Japan’s 1.3.

Dizzyingly high land prices in Hong Kong do not help as young couples struggle to finance living space for toddlers. An antiquated education system also puts off aspiring parents.

Some people have turned to cats and dogs to sate their emotional needs. Pet shops have boomed. Several pet-friendly parks are being built in Kai Tak, a central business district to-be.

For the better part of the last two decades, Japan has shown how little invigoration an increasingly grey population brings to the economy if demographics are allowed to run their natural course of decline. Its GDP has remained at similar levels of around US$5 trillion, with growth around 1 per cent year on year. Lack of demand and lagging innovation have dragged down even the most vibrant prefectures.

This demographic tide of senescence looms over Hong Kong. Cultural and economic factors render the trend difficult to remedy.

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