Families packing up and leaving Hong Kong over pollution life expectancy fears

This year, Sasha Haldane and her husband, Will Hayward, took one of the biggest decisions of their lives. They decided that, for the sake of their two children, they would leave Hong Kong.

Haldane grew up in the city and, apart from a brief spell in Australia and New Zealand, had lived and worked here all her life. Max, 10, and Alyssa, six, were both born and raised in Hong Kong. Their parents had good jobs and the children were settled happily in schools. One factor alone compelled them to leave.

"Will became very concerned about the air pollution as he is an ultra-marathoner," says Haldane. "He was really noticing the air quality when he was running, and I was noticing that you could no longer see across the harbour most days in winter. What was meant to be the best time of year, October/November, was now the worst."

Hayward worked as head of the psychology department at the University of Hong Kong. Concerned about the deteriorating air quality, he sought out Professor Anthony Hedley, an expert on air pollution at HKU's School of Public Health. He discussed the problem with Hedley and set about reading a long list of scientific papers on the effects of pollution.

"As a result of those papers, we realised that if we did not leave, we were going to reduce our children's life expectancy. What we understood was that, whilst it was bad for younger children living in this air quality, the most impact was going to come when they were teenagers, when the greatest expansion of their lung growth was occurring. The pollution could affect that expansion so that when they were much older, in later life, they would be less able to recover from respiratory illnesses and more likely to die earlier."

So, with heavy hearts, the family looked for places with cleaner air in which to live.

"When a job came up in Auckland, New Zealand, Will was happy to move," Haldane says, from her new home. "He is from New Zealand and has family here. Auckland has very good air quality for the size of the population. But there were no other factors. We both had very good jobs, great friends and a wonderful lifestyle. In January, we moved."