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Alice Wu

The public consultation for Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s last policy address of his current term is under way. Will he, for example, listen to the people about whether the baby bonus, one of the initiatives aimed at raising the birth rate and which is set to expire in October, should continue? Lee did say in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post that his government plans to “collect wisdom” before deciding.
According to the chief executive, Hong Kong experienced a 10 per cent rise in the birth rate in 2024, a year after the bonus was introduced. It was the year of the dragon, after all, traditionally a year for more babies to be born. But, by 2025, births had fallen by 15 per cent to 31,100 – almost half the 59,900 in 2015.
Perhaps it’s time the government stopped using the fact our low birth rate is part of the “global challenge” in developed economies as a convenient excuse and instead looked inwards to understand the obstacles couples here face.
One thing the government must answer is whether it is willing to build larger homes to make living spaces big enough for families. Officials are well aware that some of the most vulnerable people living in subdivided flats are those with children. How hard is it to understand that if homes remain painfully unaffordable and pitifully small, it’s very difficult to persuade couples to have children?
The “wisdom” is abundant. Whether the government is willing to “collect” it is another matter. The Hong Kong Future Economy Institute recently released a report titled “Smaller and Smaller”, which found that the average floor area of newly completed units was about three-quarters the size of a flat built in 1995.

The shrinkage is evident. Public housing units have turned from family flats to micro units; subsidised housing has shrunk from family-sized homes to “starter” units unfit for families.
In the private market, homes have shrunk so drastically that, at one point, nano flats were all the rage until the government intervened. If cultural shifts have caused couples to delay having children due to postgraduate studies and careers, the housing trends definitely reinforce that they made the rational choice.
People who live in mansions aren’t necessarily going to have dozens of children. But size does matter, especially when we’re talking about lack of space. Ultimately, affordability – especially of living space and quality of life – plays a crucial role in encouraging people to become parents.
The institute’s report cited a 2026 paper that pointed to affordability having “deteriorated sharply since 2002”, meaning that “younger generations face worse housing outcomes than their parents”.


Lee is right to point out that Hongkongers “think of quality more than quantity” and are likely to have “one child rather than having three or four children”. I only wish that he would listen to himself and formulate policies on housing, education and social services that focus on quality over quantity.
But wait, there’s more wisdom to be found. A study analysing the evolution of income and wealth inequality in the city between 1981 and 2021 has crowned Hong Kong the world’s most unequal society for wealth distribution, fuelled by the capital-asset ownership that stalls social mobility. According to a conservative estimate, 10.3 per cent of the city’s total private wealth was concentrated in the hands of the richest 0.001 per cent in 2018.
Yang Li, an advanced researcher at the Germany-based ZEW-Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research who presented the study at the University of Hong Kong, put it bluntly: “For a society where people cannot afford to have a baby or a decent place to live, the question for Hong Kong is not whether it can afford to change, but the question is whether it can afford not to change.”
Change will only occur if the government takes a holistic approach to problem-solving, which requires going beyond self-assigned key performance indicators.
Serving the people means delivering quality over quantity. Unfortunately, if we look at the city’s suicide rate, birth rate and happiness index, we are not doing too well in terms of what the central government has tasked the Lee administration with doing: raising people’s overall sense of happiness and contentment.
Hong Kong has also fallen to its lowest position in the World Happiness Report, slipping further down for the sixth consecutive year. It now ranks 90th out of 147 places. Somehow, I doubt the chief executive will be asking how he could make us all happier.


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A man pushes a baby in a pram in Yau Ma Tei on July 17, 2025. Photo: Jelly Tse

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John Lee (left) and University Grants Committee chairman Tim Lui (right). Photo: May Tse

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If homes remain painfully unaffordable and pitifully small, it’s very difficult to persuade couples to have children


If homes remain painfully unaffordable and pitifully small, it’s very difficult to persuade couples to have children.


Hong Kong economy

John Lee

China

Hong Kong population

Hong Kong housing

Ageing society

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


To boost birth rate, Hong Kong needs to deliver quality housing

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}If homes remain painfully unaffordable and pitifully small, it’s very difficult to persuade couples to have children

If homes remain painfully unaffordable and pitifully small, it’s very difficult to persuade couples to have children