A new population policy challenge towards the cross border birth issue in Hong Kong

Following the handover, Hong Kong started to have birthright citizenship to Chinese citizens which induced mainland Chinese citizen couples to cross the border to give birth in Hong Kong. From 2003, the young population in Hong Kong was much smaller than the total number of births. This was not because infant mortality increased sharply; it was because most of the children born by mainland Chinese citizen couples were not settling in Hong Kong after their birth. The gap between the number of births and actual young population directly affected the population and economic development in the future. Since Hong Kong had a very low total fertility rate more young population was needed to maintain the active of the society. Although there were a large number of mainland Chinese citizen couples born children who had granted the right of abode in Hong Kong, they did not help the economic development if they did not reside in Hong Kong. Thus, there was a necessary to rethink the population policy of Hong Kong and this paper aimed to discuss the population policy in Hong Kong towards the issue of mainland Chinese citizen couples’ cross border birth.