Hong Kong’s birth rate on track to hit 24-year low, with local schools fearing closures as enrolment declines

Hong Kong’s birth rate is on track to hit a 24-year low, with the number of babies born in the first 11 months of last year down 12 per cent from the same period in 2020.

The release of the figure on Monday coincided with the Education Bureau acknowledging in a meeting with a teachers’ group that all Hong Kong schools would find themselves affected by a steep decline in student population by 2025.

The falling birth rate has prompted educators to call for more government subsidies for kindergartens, warning there could be a wave of school closures otherwise.

According to the Census and Statistics Department, 35,464 babies were born in the first 11 months of last year, compared with 40,360 during the same period in 2020. Last year’s 11-month tally was the lowest seen since 1997.

Although the number of registered births in December is not available yet, it is not expected to reverse the downward trend.

Nancy Lam Chui-ling, a kindergarten principal and vice-chairwoman of the 37,000-member Federation of Education Workers, told the Post in a recent interview that she foresaw the declining birth rate posing an existential threat to some of the city’s 1,000 kindergartens, predicting a wave of school closures as the student population continued to shrink.