This means that in less than a decade, a person who has an income will be supporting more than one individual with no income. By 2033, the situation will worsen to the stage where every two economically active people will have to support three inactive ones, according to the research.

Paul Yip Siu-fai, a population policy expert at the University of Hong Kong and leader of the research, said the findings indicated the balance would be tipped at least 10 years earlier than had been projected in previous studies. He warned that any government policies would take time to establish and come into full effect.

'We don't have a lot of time left. Don't just sit there,' Dr Yip said. 'If everyone was Richard Li [Tzar-kai, son of tycoon Li Ka-shing], he would have no problem supporting three hundred economically inactive people at one time.

'The worrying thing is the 'economically active' group includes those whose earnings are not even sufficient to meet their own basic needs. We are talking about people earning HK$4,000 or HK$5,000 a month. How do you expect them to support another person?'

Earlier projections were conducted based on the traditional approach of looking at dependency by separating the population into three age groups. Those falling into the 0-to-14-year-old and the 65-year-old-and-over brackets are considered dependants, while the 15-to-64-year-olds are the working group.

But Dr Yip said the approach was inaccurate because not everyone between 15 and 64 years of age would be working.

The problem as identified by this traditional approach was less acute and would take longer to materialise - the dependency level would revert to the 1985 level in 2025, when two workers would be expected to raise a non-working person.

Projections of the Census and Statistics Department indicated that in 2033, as much as 26.8 per cent of the population would be aged 65 or over.

In June last year, the Council for Sustainable Development's support group on population policy, of which Dr Yip is a member, released a consultation paper to gauge the views of the public on the decline in population growth and the shrinking of the workforce. The paper suggested raising the retirement age and introducing flexible working hours for women to encourage couples to have children, and said the government should take the lead by offering paternity leave to civil servants.

But after 26 public meetings and 1,691 written responses, the recommendations were not included in the final report the council submitted to the government in June this year.

Some of the advisory body's own members criticised the document as a watered-down version of their consultation report. They said it ignored public opinion and carried only general recommendations on improving the quality of life and promoting a family-friendly working environment. Critics were not optimistic about the government's response to the report, expected later this year.

In the same month that the council's final report was submitted to the government, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen unveiled his vision of boosting Hong Kong's population by 40 per cent, to 10 million.

In an interview with the Financial Times, he said 'an adequate stock of resources of the right quality' was needed in order for the city to compete with New York and London as a global financial centre. To achieve the critical mass, the government is now contemplating pairing up with Shenzhen by allowing its 2 million permanent residents to freely make multiple visits to Hong Kong.

Quality is as much a problem as quantity. At present, only 15 per cent of Hong Kong people hold a university degree, compared with about 50 per cent in Singapore. Eddie Ng Hak-kim, a council member of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management, said there should be more university places and retraining opportunities for school dropouts to boost the competitiveness of the local workforce.

Mr Ng said there was a false assumption that skilled foreign workers saw Hong Kong as a dreamland to live and work in. 'While Singapore is now the favourite place for overseas workers in this part of the world, Hong Kong is not even in the top five,' he said.

The 900-odd applications made under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, launched in June last year to attract top-end talent from the mainland and overseas, could not even fill its annual quota of 1,000, he said.

The human resources expert said a comprehensive, proactive strategy for attracting quality people was lacking in Hong Kong. 'There is no reaching out, sourcing or targeting of talent,' said Mr Ng. 'To stay ahead in the global war for talent, we need to change our mindset. We need to tell overseas talent: 'I love you, I want you. Do come, I will make it so easy for you',' he said.

The tedious process that a foreigner now needs to undergo to work or live in Hong Kong has turned many away. While nations such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada require a foreigner to live in the country for only three to five years in order to become a permanent resident, Hong Kong requires seven years. 'Should the seven-year wait be compulsory? If you are so in need of external support, why can't it be relaxed?' asked Mr Ng.

Singapore was famous for its aggressive policies, he said. Overseas hot shots in each industry are identified and approached by officers from the Singaporean government shortly after they enter the country. Provisional work visas or even permanent residency are offered as an incentive for them to stay. The country also has dozens of semi-official organisations to encourage an exchange of talent.

Since August 2004, Shanghai has been offering green cards - China's version of a long-term residency permit - to overseas investors and high-ranking professionals. The policy, expected to be gradually implemented in other major mainland cities, also aims to bring overseas Chinese back to their home country.

Mr Ng said the US was adept at tapping into the talent pool by devoting many resources to establishing their university alumni network worldwide. 'It is an extremely smart move to make sure that the country will not lose its overseas students after investing so much time and energy on them. Overseas alumni groups are often their de facto student and professional recruitment agencies,' said Mr Ng.

In contrast, he said, universities in Hong Kong cared little about their alumni once they returned home. He suggested that the 10 per cent quota for places for foreign students at local universities be increased.

He said Hong Kong people had a misconception that foreign talent was coming to compete with them rather than stimulate growth in industries, infrastructure and job opportunities.

'There is a serious shortage of scientific research to help the public understand the benefits of having overseas talents. Statistics can shut up the politicians who tend to politicise the subject and hurt our economy by telling people that foreigners are coming only to snatch our rice bowls,' he said.

Apart from Hong Kong's air pollution and 'grossly inadequate' international school places, the city also failed to embrace diversity in the true sense, said Mr Ng. 'Many people here take on an islander's view. They are not cross-cultural or inclusive. When they live overseas, they tend to stick to themselves.'

Statistics also showed that Singaporeans and Indians heavily outnumbered Hong Kong people in the ranks on senior professionals in Fortune 500 multinational corporations, he said.

The job satisfaction index in Hong Kong is, at 44 per cent, one of the lowest among countries with fast-growing economies, and compares with 54 per cent in Singapore, 59 per cent in India, 65 per cent in the US and 78 per cent in Switzerland, according to the figures he compiled. He said Hong Kong employers had to change their expectations of employees.

The findings of a study done last October by Community Business, a non-governmental organisation that promotes work-life balance and diversity in the workplace, pointed to the lack of a family-friendly working environment in many local companies.

A five-day work week, flexible working hours and the option of working from home were the top three wishes of employees interviewed. Only 28 per cent of the companies polled had a five-day week, the study found.

The employees' requests were nothing radical or unachievable, said Shalini Mahtani, founder of the Community Business. 'Look at the time when we had Sars. Every single large company told its employees to work from home. And you know what? Business continued,' she said.

Ms Mahtani suggested that the government, which had set a good example by introducing a five-day week in the civil service, should encourage companies to follow suit by speaking to them about how it implemented the policy and what the benefits and challenges were.

Apart from tackling a shrinking workforce, a medical expert called on the government to revamp the existing medical system to prepare for a growing elderly population. 'About half of the medical expenses throughout life come in the last six to 12 months of our life. If we can compress morbidity towards the very end, we can reduce medical expenditure and improve the quality of life,' said Gabriel Leung, professor of community medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

Professor Leung called for more diversity in care services to enable the elderly to age gracefully. In addition to nursing homes, there should be different types of pre-institutionalised support for the group, he said.

He also suggested subsidising private-sector medicine prices to divert some of the heavy patient load from public hospitals. Many elderly patients with chronic diseases paid frequent visits to public hospitals for the sole purpose of getting inexpensive medicine. If the cost of medicine in the private sector was also subsidised, more of these patients would consider going to private doctors, he argued.

A territory-wide medical insurance scheme should be mandatory, Professor Leung also said. 'Hong Kong is a liberal democracy and we can't dictate how a person lives. But nobody is sure what his health condition will be when he gets old. In that light, he should make sure that he always has a safety net to fall onto,' he said.

Changing faces

Percentage of population with university degrees:

Hong Kong: 15%

Singapore: 40-50%

Employee job satisfaction rates:

Hong Kong: 44%

Singapore: 54%

India: 59%

US: 65%

Switzerland: 78%

What the experts say the chief executive should do

1 Adopt a more aggressive, proactive overseas talent-hunting strategy, including reviewing the across-the-board seven-year stay requirement for attaining permanent residency in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management council member Eddie Ng Hak-kim)

2 Increase university places for local students, lift the 10 per cent quota for overseas students, and strengthen their alumni network worldwide (Eddie Ng)

3 Encourage companies to bring in five-day weeks by asking government department heads to speak to companies on the advantages and challenges of implementing the policy (Community Business founder Shalini Mahtani)

4 Offer a variety of pre-institutionalised health-care support for the elderly to help them age gracefully and minimise medical expenditure (University of Hong Kong community medicine professor Gabriel Leung)