HK's population 'unsustainable'
Hong Kong's population will not be sustainable if the city continues to rely on immigrants without persuading families to have more children, an Italian expert has warned.
The government should adopt a mixed approach - increasing the fertility rate, encouraging immigration and maintaining a stable, short-term labour force such as domestic helpers, demographer Antonio Golini said.
'The more rapid the decline in the fertility rate, the more rapid and intense the ageing of the population,' Professor Golini said.
The University of Rome demographer was invited by the University of Hong Kong to share his experience of dealing with Italy's low fertility rate, at a conference on population policy this week.
Professor Golini is Italy's representative at the UN Commission on Population and Development and has worked as a consultant on a fertility rate project commissioned by the Hong Kong government's Central Policy Unit.
He said Hong Kong and Italy shared a similar problem. Of the Mediterranean country's population of 58 million, about 55 per cent are aged 60 or above and families spent around Euro8 billion (HK$80 billion) last year to hire 800,000 helpers from Eastern Europe to take care of the elderly.
Hong Kong's fertility rate of 0.7 births per woman of child-bearing age is 65 per cent below the replacement level of 2; Italy's rate is about 1.2.
Professor Golini said Hong Kong had allowed too many mainlanders to immigrate; more than 50,000 one-way permit holders entered in 2005. The figure was much higher than the local population's natural growth of 18,000 in the same year.
'A tax allowance is [necessary], but it is not sufficient.'
