Letters | Cash transfusion not a cure for Hong Kong couples’ reluctance to have children
Readers discuss government efforts to boost the city’s fertility rate, a church’s conflict with an international school, and China’s attitude to its past
Tax relief is similarly front-loaded. Doubling the child allowance for the first two years ignores the arithmetic every parent knows: diapers are cheap, university is not. The real squeeze arrives when families confront tutorial centres, international school debentures and orthodontist bills.
Meanwhile, a typical flat costs 14 times the median income. Priority housing helps the 5,000 households lucky enough to have their wait for public housing shortened, but offers nothing to the sandwich class whose salaries disqualify them from subsidised flats yet whose savings cannot outrun private-sector prices.
If officials want young couples to trade dual-income-no-kids lifestyles for prams, they must underwrite the entire 20-year project of parenthood, not just the maternity-ward invoice. That means refundable tax credits that scale with education expenses, mortgage-interest deductions indexed to the number of children, and a statutory right to part-time work so talent does not evaporate after the first school run.
Singapore, for example, already links Housing and Development Board flat allocation to the presence of children throughout the life cycle. Hong Kong can adapt models from countries around the world without reinventing them.