More young Hongkongers commit suicide over unaffordable housing and lack of social mobility
Many feel like outcasts in city with little chance of advancing, experts say
More Hongkongers aged 15 to 24 killed themselves last year, with suicide prevention workers pointing to the exorbitant cost of housing, the lack of social mobility and a negative perception of young people in society.
Yet the overall suicide rate had dropped by almost 35 per cent from its peak in 2003, when the economy was in the doldrums, according to the annual report of the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day today.
Provisional figures show fewer than 900 Hongkongers took their lives last year, a 5 per cent year-on-year drop and a rate of about 12.3 per 100,000 people.
The city's age-standardised suicide rate was estimated to be 8.6 per 100,000 people, which is below the global average of 11.4 released by the World Health Organisation. That is well below South Korea (28.9), Japan (18.5) and Western countries, with the exception of the United Kingdom, where the rate was 6.2.
But running against this trend, the suicide rate among those aged 15 to 24 rose by about 2 per cent to an estimated 7.65 last year, making it the only age group where a rise was recorded.
The rate was at 8.3 in 2012, a 19 per cent rise from 2010, but it had declined to 7.5 in 2013.
Social worker Eddie Wong Lok-man said a 14-year-old youth had once sought his help because he saw no future in Hong Kong even if he studied hard and went to university.
"He told me his biggest worry was that he would never be able to afford a home, and he said he needed to start planning even at his age," he said. "Many [young people] think getting into local universities means nothing unless one can get into the top three. They see tertiary education more as getting into a huge debt than achieving social mobility.
"In short, he sees nothing he can aspire to in life."
The latest government statistics show university graduates in the city last year earned just HK$1,800, or 20 per cent, more than their predecessors of 20 years ago, lagging far behind inflation and property prices over the same period.
Young people have also been cast in a dim light since the Occupy movement last year. The term , meaning "useless youth" in Cantonese, has been popularised by opponents of the hard-core young supporters of the pro-democracy movement. Such terms would only reinforce misunderstandings within society, said the centre's director, Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai.
"The fact that these young people managed to organise and pull it off during Occupy certainly shows that they are anything but useless," Yip said, adding that no rise in youth suicide was recorded from September to October, at the height of the protests.
"In the past decade, the difficulties, competition and chances of upward opportunity facing our youth have been getting worse, so we've always appealed to policymakers and adults to show them greater understanding, and give them more opportunities."
