Family Size in Hong Kong

Do you know that Hongkongers prefer to have small families?

According to the statistics of the Hong Kong government, the average household size has decreased from 4.5 persons in 1971 to 3 persons in 2006.

Unlike traditional Chinese families, where “the more the merrier” belief prevails, Hongkongers don’t really want to have too many kids (who love taking care of those crying and screaming demon spawns anyway?), especially since 1970s, when Hong Kong’s population started to grow and the British Hong Kong government tried to implement the non-mandatory two-child policy. The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong helped by launching the “two is enough” (兩個就夠晒數) campaign.

However, the post war baby boom period and the two-child campaign in 1970s led to the shift in population structure and population ageing is becoming a serious problem in Hong Kong. Seeing that, the association made an advertisement in 2015 and, instead of promoting birth control, suggested that Hongkongers should have larger families, even to the point of saying “you can even form a basketball team”.

This, of course, led to criticisms and disagreements. Some said that it’s kind of inconsiderate and irresponsible to have so many kids at once (we are not hares after all), and some argued that it’s hard to raise children in Hong Kong because of the housing problem and economic difficulties.

Man, lots of adults can’t even take care of themselves, and you ask them to take care of more? And don’t forget that Hong Kong is already over-crowded, both on the city level or individual level. I know that we need to find a way to deal with the aging population, but trying to solve the problem of having too many people by giving birth to even more people?

No…just no.