This article is authored by a correspondent of the Financial Times. It appeared in the Financial Times, June 9, 20014.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4ecdb7de-cbbf-11e3-a934-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz347ygsk1V
Hong Kong has come up with a novel way to deal with the rising costs of an ageing population and a shortage of land: export some of its elderly across the border to mainland China.
The Chinese territory is not alone in looking at ways to deal with a problem that is taxing governments across Asia from Japan to Singapore, South Korea and mainland China itself. But its partial solution comes against a backdrop of
growing hostility between the people of Hong Kong and their close neighbours.
In recent years Hong Kong campaigners have denounced “mainland mothers” who come to the territory to
give birth, for occupying maternity beds. They have also turned their ire against tourists from the mainland, who pour huge amounts of money into the territory. This trend even prompted local lawmakers to consider amending their anti-discrimination laws so that calling mainlanders “locusts” would be a racist offence.
But now the Hong Kong government, under pressure to provide homes for almost 30,000 elderly people on the waiting list for subsidised residential care, is looking to neighbouring Guangdong province to provide the space, and a partial solution, for its demographic problem. The elderly population, defined as those aged over 65, is set to make up more than a third of the population by 2050. Hong Kong also has one of the highest elderly poverty rates in the developed world.
The scheme will initially be limited to a maximum of 400 places but the need is acute. The average wait of 20-30
months for a place in a residential home means thousands of elderly people die before they ever get one.
Ng Ping Yiu took up a place at a care home across the border before the new scheme was unveiled. But now that it is due to start in earnest, the 71-year-old has begun recommending the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation’s home in the manufacturing centre of Shenzhen to his friends.
“Here, there are mountains, greenery and flowers . . . For visiting, it’s not as convenient as Hong Kong, but there’s not that much difference,” says Mr Ng.
The shortage of care home places that has taken Mr Ng across the Chinese border is not unique to Hong Kong. Indeed, mainland China will have to consider how it cares for its own elderly, who are set to grow to almost a
quarter of the population by 2050.
But Hong Kong’s struggle to house its old people is exacerbated by a shortage of land that has meant property prices are among the highest in the world. And yet the take-up of mainland residential places by Hong Kong residents has so far been relatively low.
Shuffling around his home in the Kowloon area while his wife sleeps, 87-year-old Ng Shui Wing could certainly do with more space. The flat, made up of one main room with a kitchen and bathroom attached, has barely enough space to contain their belongings, let alone his wife’s wheelchairs – one of which doubles as a chair because of the lack of space.
Mr Ng has been waiting for a subsidised place in a care home for four years but he says he has no wish to go to Guangdong. “If I went, how would I go at my age? How would I go so far?”
He is also worried about being separated from his wife, who has had a stroke: “I care for her, I feed her . . . When I’m at home to look after her it’s better – to have a loved one there.”
Advocates of the scheme – the first applications will be processed in July – believe that for the likes of Mr Ng the government will need to provide incentives, including reassurances about healthcare. In the past, people who
retired to the mainland have often travelled back to Hong Kong to receive medical treatment because they cannot afford to pay for it in China.
The Elderly Commission, which advises the territory’s authorities and first suggested the cross-border housing scheme, has also been lobbying the Hong Kong government to do more closer to home and make facilities for the elderly a requirement when it sells land to private developers.
Alfred Chan, the commission chairman, says the government “has made the guarantee that the same services planned for everyone should remain the same”.
Most agree that the elderly would prefer to grow old closer to home or with family.
“It’s the culture to look after the elderly,” says Cheung Moon Wah, general manager of elderly services at the Housing Society, a Hong Kong non-governmental organisation. “We don’t want premature institutionalisation.”
Meanwhile, the waiting lists for residential care places in Hong Kong grows and the prospects remain stark.
“We’re not forcing the elderly to go to Guangdong or the mainland to grow old,” says Ng Hang-sau, chief executive of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. “This [scheme] just gives one more option to Hong Kong residents.
“[But] if they are number 50 on the waiting list and they choose to come to the mainland, they can get a place quite quickly. If they choose not to, they continue to be number 50 on the list.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4ecdb7de-cbbf-11e3-a934-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz347ygsk1V
Hong Kong has come up with a novel way to deal with the rising costs of an ageing population and a shortage of land: export some of its elderly across the border to mainland China.
The Chinese territory is not alone in looking at ways to deal with a problem that is taxing governments across Asia from Japan to Singapore, South Korea and mainland China itself. But its partial solution comes against a backdrop of
growing hostility between the people of Hong Kong and their close neighbours.
In recent years Hong Kong campaigners have denounced “mainland mothers” who come to the territory to
give birth, for occupying maternity beds. They have also turned their ire against tourists from the mainland, who pour huge amounts of money into the territory. This trend even prompted local lawmakers to consider amending their anti-discrimination laws so that calling mainlanders “locusts” would be a racist offence.
But now the Hong Kong government, under pressure to provide homes for almost 30,000 elderly people on the waiting list for subsidised residential care, is looking to neighbouring Guangdong province to provide the space, and a partial solution, for its demographic problem. The elderly population, defined as those aged over 65, is set to make up more than a third of the population by 2050. Hong Kong also has one of the highest elderly poverty rates in the developed world.
The scheme will initially be limited to a maximum of 400 places but the need is acute. The average wait of 20-30
months for a place in a residential home means thousands of elderly people die before they ever get one.
Ng Ping Yiu took up a place at a care home across the border before the new scheme was unveiled. But now that it is due to start in earnest, the 71-year-old has begun recommending the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation’s home in the manufacturing centre of Shenzhen to his friends.
“Here, there are mountains, greenery and flowers . . . For visiting, it’s not as convenient as Hong Kong, but there’s not that much difference,” says Mr Ng.
The shortage of care home places that has taken Mr Ng across the Chinese border is not unique to Hong Kong. Indeed, mainland China will have to consider how it cares for its own elderly, who are set to grow to almost a
quarter of the population by 2050.
But Hong Kong’s struggle to house its old people is exacerbated by a shortage of land that has meant property prices are among the highest in the world. And yet the take-up of mainland residential places by Hong Kong residents has so far been relatively low.
Shuffling around his home in the Kowloon area while his wife sleeps, 87-year-old Ng Shui Wing could certainly do with more space. The flat, made up of one main room with a kitchen and bathroom attached, has barely enough space to contain their belongings, let alone his wife’s wheelchairs – one of which doubles as a chair because of the lack of space.
Mr Ng has been waiting for a subsidised place in a care home for four years but he says he has no wish to go to Guangdong. “If I went, how would I go at my age? How would I go so far?”
He is also worried about being separated from his wife, who has had a stroke: “I care for her, I feed her . . . When I’m at home to look after her it’s better – to have a loved one there.”
Advocates of the scheme – the first applications will be processed in July – believe that for the likes of Mr Ng the government will need to provide incentives, including reassurances about healthcare. In the past, people who
retired to the mainland have often travelled back to Hong Kong to receive medical treatment because they cannot afford to pay for it in China.
The Elderly Commission, which advises the territory’s authorities and first suggested the cross-border housing scheme, has also been lobbying the Hong Kong government to do more closer to home and make facilities for the elderly a requirement when it sells land to private developers.
Alfred Chan, the commission chairman, says the government “has made the guarantee that the same services planned for everyone should remain the same”.
Most agree that the elderly would prefer to grow old closer to home or with family.
“It’s the culture to look after the elderly,” says Cheung Moon Wah, general manager of elderly services at the Housing Society, a Hong Kong non-governmental organisation. “We don’t want premature institutionalisation.”
Meanwhile, the waiting lists for residential care places in Hong Kong grows and the prospects remain stark.
“We’re not forcing the elderly to go to Guangdong or the mainland to grow old,” says Ng Hang-sau, chief executive of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. “This [scheme] just gives one more option to Hong Kong residents.
“[But] if they are number 50 on the waiting list and they choose to come to the mainland, they can get a place quite quickly. If they choose not to, they continue to be number 50 on the list.”
