Dear Editor,
I am writing to express my opinion on the issue of the decline in the birth rate in Hong Kong. In the past, while walking on the street, we could see a mother holding two little boys’ hands, and carrying another boy on her back. Nowadays, however, we will see a trendy couple pushing a pram with a lovely baby inside if we stroll along the street. What phenomenon does it imply? It implies that the birth rate in Hong Kong is sliding. Disclosed by population taskforce, the birth rate and average family size have been dropping for the past twenty years. Most married couples now choose to have no more than two children, if any at all.
Before giving suggestions on how to boost the birth rate, we should firstly find out why there is a continuous drop in family size and birth rate. One major reason is that there is a change in the perception of family as well as child. In the past decades, as the living standard was low, people would tend to have a big family with at least four children because they could work and give financial support to the family. They thought that children could take care of their parents when they were old. Due to rapid economic growth and the rise in living standard, people do not treat a child as a tool to support the family financially now. They prefer to train their child to be well-rounded so as to ensure that their children will have even better living standard in the future. However, nurturing a child takes a lot of money and time. Some people even said it takes four million dollars to bring up a child. Some of the parents will let their children join the playgroups when the are in pre-education stage. Some of them will even send their kids to two kindergartens. That is why we have “dual-kinder kids”. Then, they need to join different extra-curricular activities, such as, playing the piano, singing, swimming, and dancing during the period of primary and secondary school lives. We can see how costly bringing up a child is. Therefore, couples incline to have more than two children. As a result, the number of nuclear family soars.
Another reason to explain why there is a drop in family size and birth rate is that people are so busy that they have little time to take care of the children. Rapid economic growth means the competition for jobs and competition for being promoted to a higher position becomes more intense. People will work hard in order to be promoted so as to secure a stable and better standard of living. They are able to bring up one or two kids as they can employ a domestic helper. However, as most of them can only afford to employ one domestic helper, they are unable to have more than two children, leading to the shrinking of family size.
After looking at the explanation for the sliding of birth rate and small family size, we should discuss the possible consequences of that.
One obvious consequence is the aging problem. If we cannot halt the dropping of birth rate, the workforce will shrink but the number of retired people will rise. This implies that our future generations have heavier social burden as they need to support a large number of old people whose ability to earn money drops nearly to zero. Also, this leads to a great financial burden to society as the government needs to spend a large sum of money on medical care and housing allowance for the elderly. This is definitely detrimental to the whole society because a large sum of money will be spent taking care of the elderly and less money will be used to invest in innovative projects, such as subsidising creative industry, providing incentives to develop technology industry etc. This will hinder the economic growth seriously.
Apart from the aging problem, a continuous decline in birth rate will lead to a destructive impact on schools. Schools without a good reputation will suffer even more.
As the number of children decreases, parents will enrol their children in schools with a better reputation. As a result, the schools without a good reputation cannot receive enough students and face a closure. A large number of school staff will be laid off. This will cause a rise in unemployment rate.
In addition to a rise in unemployment rate, a continuous drop in birth rate and family size will lead to a reduction in the number of talents. It is because the number of students who are nurtured decreases and this leads to a drop in talents in all aspects such as science, music, sports etc. Facing less intense competition, our future generation will not work as hard as the people in the past. Take competition for places in university as an example. If the birth rate is low, it is easier for students to get a place in university compared to the people in the past. It is because the places in university keep increasing but the number of applicants keeps dropping. Subsequently, the competitiveness of Hong Kong will decline compared to other countries such Japan. The economic growth of Hong Kong will be retarded.
The possible consequences of the sliding birth rate are what people do not want to see. Some solutions are suggested for the government to boost the birth rate. These suggestions are in accordance with the reasons leading to a drop in birth rate.
People refuse to have more than two children because they think bringing up a child is extremely costly. To ease their financial worry, incentives should be provided to married couples. These incentives include tax allowances for children, cash gifts and tax cuts etc. As a result, married couples will face a reduced cost of raising children and the birth rate of Hong Kong would be boosted.
For couples who are too busy at work and cannot strike a balance between working and taking care of their children, the implementation of five-day work week would be a solution. Working for fewer days than before, those couples could have more time to take care of their children. They would be willing to have more children and the birth rate could be increased.
A continuous drop in birth rate will bring about bad effects to society and the economy of Hong Kong. The government should tackle this problem as soon as possible before it is too late.