HK youths marrying later

January 21, 2013

Young people in Hong Kong are less likely to be married than in the past, reflecting trends towards marriage at later ages and towards remaining single, according to a 2011 Population Census report published today.
 
The proportion of young people aged 15 to 24 who had never married rose from 96.2% in 2001 to 97.9% in 2011, while the proportion of married people who were aged 15 to 24 dropped from 3.6% in 2001 to 2% in 2011.
 
At the same time, more young people are attending post-secondary education, with 338,301, or 39.3% of the same age group doing so in 2011, compared with 173,225 youths, or 19.5%, in 2001.
 
There were 860,002 people aged 15 to 24 in Hong Kong in 2011, constituting 12.6% of the whole population, a decrease from 887,432 in 2001. These figures exclude foreign domestic helpers, who are otherwise generally counted as part of the resident population.
 
In 2011, 49.3% of this group were aged 15-19, with the remaining 50.7% aged 20-24. In terms of sex ratio, the number of males per 1,000 females in the whole age group was 1,042. The sex ratio of males to females in the age group 15-19 (1,053) was slightly higher than that in the age group 20-24 (1,032).
 
The report also showed that 94.6% of those aged 15 to 24 lived with parents and about 1% lived on their own. The most common type of housing for this age group was private permanent housing at 42.9%, with 38% living in public rental housing.