According to a charity’s survey, only 31% of Hong Kong mums want a second child. Photo: Yik Yeung-manA survey conducted by a local charity has discovered that a mere 31 per cent of mothers in Hong Kong have the desire to have a second child. The institution is reaching out to authorities to increase motivation to help boost the city’s declining birth rate.
The Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children called on Sunday for the government to expand its subsidised day care services, especially for those aged below three, to help encourage households to have more children.
The charity also interviewed more than 1,200 first-time mothers aged 18 to 45 between May and June, with only 31 per cent of respondents saying they wanted another child to give the first one a sibling.
A third of respondents told researchers they had no plans to have another child, while the remainder were undecided.
Among those uninterested in having a second child, the reasons cited included the heavy financial burden, the stress of parenting, crowded living conditions, and the challenges of balancing work and childcare.
Some of the surveyed mothers called for the option to take parental or family leave, as well as increases in maternity and paternity leave.
Schools in China are closing because there aren’t enough children
They also called for more family friendly working conditions, with policies such as flexible hours, work from home and more annual leave for parents.
The city’s fertility rate, which refers to the number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime, fell to 0.75 in 2023. It was among the lowest recorded figures in the world at the time and way below the necessary replacement level of 2.1.
The number of newborn babies in Hong Kong also dropped from more than 91,000 in 2012 to 32,000 in 2022, according to official figures.
Charity director Subrina Chow Shun-yee said the survey results showed a need for the government to expand and promote its childcare services.
“A more comprehensive day childcare services will allow more parents to join the workforce … which will increase the financial capacity of families in childbearing,” she said.
“The economic benefit for the individual, the family and at a social level is way bigger than the HK$20,000 [US$2,570] baby bonus.”
The government last year announced it would hand out one-off HK$20,000 bonuses to couples with babies born from October 25 of that year onwards, as part of a wider initiative to boost the birth rate.
Authorities at the time also pledged to open 10 more childcare centres, providing about 900 places over the next three years.
But Chow said on Tuesday that the extra spots only accounted for about 10 per cent of all currently available places, while the service demand was way above that level.
“There are 1,500 children on our waiting list, but we can only offer a quota of about 150 each year. It means some parents will never have a shot here,” she said. “Only one in 40 toddlers will have access to the service [citywide].”
Asked whether the industry had the capacity to expand such services, Chow said the city was lacking professionals able to take care of children aged two and below.
She said the charity was committed to providing on-the-job training and had developed an assessment system to ensure service quality.
Chow also urged training institutions to adjust their curriculums to prepare graduates for working with younger children.
Other suggestions raised by the charity included offering tax reductions to companies with family-friendly policies and further promoting respite childcare services, the usage rate of which currently remained below 50 per cent.
Winnie Tam Ming-wai, a social worker and mother of a two-year-old boy, said she had applied for the charity’s day childcare service for her son when she was five months pregnant.
Deep Dive: China’s elderly population is rising, but there aren’t enough carers
She finally secured a spot when her son was three months old.
Tam said she the service cost her less than HK$5,000 a month and meant she could drop her son off at the centre in Shau Kei Wan at 8am each day and pick him up after work at 7pm.
“As a new mother, I had a lot of struggles and questions … but the childcare workers were very helpful and would provide food and activities according to the developmental needs of my son,” she said.
She added that staff had kept a record of her son’s activities, ranging from toilet habits to quarrels with classmates, to keep his mother up-to-date.
“I would consider giving birth to a second child if I could get a place at childcare service again.”
Tam added that she hoped authorities could fully subsidise kindergarten education, freeing up parents from having to research and compare various institutions.
Hong Kong currently only offers full government subsidies for half-day kindergarten services.
The charity was embroiled in a high-profile child abuse scandal in 2021, prompting welfare authorities to conduct a review of residential childcare services.
The organisation, which is the largest operator of childcare services in the city, has been banned from joining tendering exercises for new subsidised services since then.