Litter in country parks angers greens
Alack of affordable childcare is hurting both Hong Kong’s low-income families and the city’s labor competitiveness.
The shortage of affordable childcare ser vices in Hong Kong is chronic and unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Government solutions have been proposed, but it didn’t go beyond the creation of committees. Low-income families, already hurt by gaping inequality, are suffering the most. Worse, the lack of childcare is forcing many parents (often mothers) out of the labor force at a time when they need the money and the city needs more workers.
There are about 200,000 children under 3 years in Hong Kong. About a third of them, almost 70,000, are from lowincome families.
There are 758 registered fullday childcare spots qualifying for subsidies, according to the Social Welfare Department. A few dozen more are attached to kindergartens. The spots in expensive private facilities would be unaffordable by lowincome parents.
Low-income parents desperately need childcare to get back to work. For them things become a little easier once children turn 3 and can go to kindergarten. But then full-time kindergarten spaces are also in short supply.
This shortage impacts Hong Kong on several levels.
The lack of childcare may be keeping low-income families from earning a second income that could drastically change their circumstances. This can exacerbate the city’s wealth gap.
The lack of childcare facilities means that tens of thousands of workers cannot go back to work. Total employment in Hong Kong at the end of 2013 was 3.76 million. Opening the potential source of labor by providing more childcare could help both family finances and shore up the labor market.
For Hong Kong, an ageing population and a shrinking workforce are significant concerns. A number of industries from construction to hospitality say there are not enough workers around and that wages are going up fast as a result. A 2013 government report suggests that Hong Kong’s workforce will start to decline rapidly by 2018, down by 14,000 workers. At the current rate of growth, the labor force in Hong Kong will shrink from 3.55 million in 2018 to 3.37 million in 2035. As of December 2014, the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.3 percent.
“Economic growth is mainly contingent on the working population and its productivity,” said Financial Secretary John Tsang during his budget speech on Feb 25. “Encouraging more women and older persons to join the workforce will help boost our economic growth.”
The Hong Kong government says a committee is developing a series of policy proposals to be put forward around the middle of this year, but the issue of childcare remains unaddressed.
Demand outstrips supply
The problem is not unique to Hong Kong. Solutions are relatively simple and involve putting the necessary infrastructure in place. In other words, throwing money at the problem usually works.
In 2002, Singapore had just 11 infant care centers, but by the end of 2012 there were almost 300, according to the Early Childhood Development Agency of the Singapore government. Some 28 new childcare centers are scheduled to open this year, with 19 of them providing infant care for children up to 18 months. Singapore started paying attention to the problem of childcare in the 1980s as part of an effort to engineer a baby boom. Taking early action has helped Singapore engineer a relatively young workforce that is growing. Hong Kong’s workforce, by comparison, could start shrinking in two years.
During his annual policy address in Januar y, C hief Executive CY Leung said the government was looking for ways to stave off the looming shortage of labor by considering extending the retirement age, diversifying the skill set of younger people and looking to attract more skilled workers from outside Hong Kong.
The government will also implement measures, including “the child care services and family-friendly practices,” said Leung. Ultimately, the government says it plans to increase the number of subsidized full- day spaces for young children at childcare and kindergartens to eventually reach 6,200, a fourfold increase. There are no deadlines for the increase and a committee is still “actively considering encouraging kindergartens” to offer more full-day services.
The government’s latest budget allocates HK$130 million to boost childcare services to provide support for women to achieve a work-family balance. The amount is but a tiny fraction of government revenue or spending . Total government revenue for 2015-16 was HK$477 billion.
“I encourage employers to introduce more flexible working arrangements,” said Tsang . “I hope they would allow employees to work from home, or offer part-time and job sharing alternatives, to enable more people with family commitments to join the workforce.”
New government offices will start providing childcare services. The Hong Kong Housing Authority is considering building childcare centers, but that might take a while to materialize.
Can’t skip work
The government insists that children benefit from being cared for by their mothers until the age of 6, but for many families this is an unaffordable luxury. While higher income families can tap into a private facility, stop working or hire full-time help, the lack of spaces and very limited government support hurts lowincome families the most.
“Why do they want to go back to work? It is because they are low-income families. If you don’t have enough money, you need to go to work,” says Liu Sisi, director of the Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres.
As of 2013, 44 percent of households in Hong Kong had annual incomes below HK$20,000 per month, a level below the median monthly income of $22,400, implying 88,000 children in Hong Kong belonged to households with income below the median, competing for a handful of spots.
In Sham Shui Po, for example, there are just 62 full-time spots for children under the age of 3. This is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Hong Kong and the lack of access to childcare services helps keep it that way. Without access to childcare new mothers cannot go back to work.
The government has outlined plans to build new childcare centers and add 1,000 spaces, but it has not set a deadline. Plans to date are to build a new facility by 2017 for around 100 children, says Liu.
“The government has set a goal but there are no (specific) plans to implement it,” says Liu. “The problem is visible all over Hong Kong, but Sham Shui Po is one of the poorest areas so there is greater need there.”
Not gender-sensitive
The lack of child care facilities may be keeping mothers from going back to work or taking up part-time jobs. There are more half-day childcare spots available, but the duration may not be long enough for the mother to take up even a part-time job. A few more hours of care would make all the difference.
Second, the shortage of services may even be keeping families from having children altogether, which exacerbates Hong Kong’s skewed demographics.
And third, the lack of services in this area helps exacerbate a skills mismatch in the Hong Kong labor market. Given some sectors suffer from chronic shortages of manpower, limiting the ability of new parents to go back to work can make this worse. New mothers who cannot afford or access childcare services have to stop working altogether.
At 10 weeks the maternity leave awarded in Hong Kong is among the shortest in the developed world. The leave is unpaid for those less than 40 weeks in service. The UK provides 39 weeks of leave, Ireland 42 and Canada 52 weeks. Austria offers 81 weeks and South Korea 65. Singapore offers 16 weeks of maternity leave. Fathers can claim a week off as well.
Issues of maternity leave also touch on concerns over gender equality, something that the government and various institutions are trying to address.
“Gender equality is something we have been looking at for quite some time,” said Albert Chau Wai-lap, dean of Student Affairs at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). HKU launched on April 10 its participation in the United Nations’ HeForShe campaign, a longterm effort to raise awareness of equality issues. “Our focus for the next few years will be on gender equality.”
Providing more childcare is one area that the university has been considering “for a long time”, said Chau.
“Low income mothers need more services,” says Liu of the Federation of Women’s Centres. “We have been following this issue for years. The services provided by the government are quite inadequate.”
HK Briefly
Litter in Hong Kong’s country parks reached a more than 10-year high after more than 3,800 tons of garbage was collected by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department last year. A coalition of five green groups wants visitors to take their rubbish with them after visiting country parks. They demanded the authorities reduce the number of waste bins to discourage people using disposable products. Environmental organization Ecobus said more than 600 pieces of tissue paper were recovered from Lantau’s Sunset Peak in January.