Professional women still face old ways of thinking in the workplace

Gynaecologist Sarah Chan switched to part-time work at a public hospital after she fell pregnant in 2010. She worked on half pay until six months after giving birth to her daughter. The flexible working arrangement helped her ease into motherhood, she says. "I was able to breastfeed my daughter for the first six months," she says.

Such flexibility in the workplace is rare, however. As a result, public-sector doctors and civil servants say, many working mothers find it hard to juggle work and home life. Lately, the problem has been brought to the fore as more women take up professional or senior leadership positions.

While the overall number of males still exceeds that of females in professions such as law and medicine, the number of women opting for such careers might see that change.

The latest figures from the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine show that there are 810 female specialists in Hong Kong aged from 31 to 40, compared to 976 males. Three specialities - anaesthesiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, and paediatrics - employ more female doctors in that age bracket than males.

Hospital Authority (HA) figures meanwhile show that of 5,441 doctors in the public sector last March, 1,980, or 36 per cent were women. That represents a 10 per cent rise from 1,229 in 2004. In the same period there was only a 1.5 per cent rise in the number of male doctors, up from 3,409 to 3,461.

The Department of Health conducted a manpower survey of the 12,176 doctors registered with the Medical Council of Hong Kong in 2012. It showed that the ratio of female to male doctors was 1:2.25, a huge increase from the 1:5.2 a decade earlier.