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Survey Findings on Views about Measures of Helping People Form and Raise Families in Hong KongReleased by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at CUHK
A telephone survey was conducted from 16 to 20 November 2013 by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views on measures of helping people form and raise families, their desired number of children and age at being parents. 802 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 45.9%. The sampling error is + or –3.46% at a confidence level of 95%.
Major findings are summarized as follows:
In the current survey, opinions of the respondents about their perceived effectiveness of five measures of helping people form and raise families in Hong Kong proposed by the government in the population policy consultation document were asked. First, concerning family benefits or services (e.g. paid parental leave, subsidized childcare and after-school care services), while three-quarters (73.2%) of the respondents reported very effective or effective, 24.4% said very ineffective or ineffective. Second, 64.5% of the 802 respondents commented that family-friendly workplace practices (e.g. flexible working hours and home office) as very effective or effective and 31.0% said otherwise.
Two-fifths (40.4%) thought direct subsidy or allowance helping meet pregnancy expenses as very effective or effective and over half of the respondents (55.4%) disagreed. As for the measure for improving access to assisted reproductive technology, one-third (32.3%) perceived it as very effective or effective, 61.3% held opposite views. Lastly, while 31.2% of the respondents considered raising public awareness on the implications of delayed marriage and childbearing on fertility to be very effective or effective, over three-fifths (64.6%) saw it very ineffective or ineffective.
The respondents were also asked for their views about the main reason of low fertility rate in Hong Kong. Among different reasons, a quarter (23.8%) chose heavy financial burden and one-fifth (21.7%) attributed to difficulties in finding suitable housing. 11.7% cited problems related to local educational system, 11.2% believed that young couples prefer enjoying freedom without children, 10.2% showed concerns about having too much responsibility in raising children and 10.0% thought demanding job as the main reason of low fertility rate in Hong Kong.
On the one hand, 7.0% of the 802 respondents did not want any child, 9.2% wanted to have one child, two-thirds (66.5%) preferred having two children and 12.1% saw three children as an ideal. The desired number of children among the respondents was 1.94 in average.
Among those who wanted to have at least one child, 4.3% said that their ideal age of having their first child was below 25 years old, 44.6% preferred age 25-29, 40.3% opted for age 30-34 and 7.8% chose age 35 or above. The mean desired age of having the first child was at 28.8 year-old.
