Will fixing Hong Kong’s childcare bottleneck help lift the city’s birth rate?

Hong Kong's childcare shortage has led to a decline in birth rates, with only 29,700 births recorded between mid-2025 and mid-2026, a 15.6% decrease from the previous year. Erica Lam, a nurse in her early forties, faced difficulties securing a day care place for her daughter, Ho-yan, who was eventually enrolled when she was eight months old. Lam emphasized the importance of childcare services for working parents like her.

The SKH St Christopher’s Home, a social welfare group, has called for better childcare support from the government to encourage more couples to have children. The home currently has the capacity to enroll 88 children under three but has a waiting list of over 70 applicants. Silvia Mak Yun-wan, the organization's CEO, noted that the demand for childcare services is high, with nearly all users being working parents.

Official data shows that there are 553 childcare centres in Hong Kong, serving 43,000 children as of the first quarter of 2026. However, the department does not track waiting times due to separate handling by different operators. Lam's husband, Charles Lam, mentioned that they tried using a government-backed Neighbourhood Support Child Care programme but never received a response.

Hong Ho-ching, the organization's service director, emphasized that working parents value the time spent with their children and can learn from day care carers to build better bonds at home. Welfare authorities have assigned social workers to 741 pre-primary institutions, including childcare centres, but lawmakers have suggested placing a social worker at each day care centre to better support working parents.