HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s birth rate has increased for the first time in six years while the overall population edged up to 7.5 million, according to the latest official figures which the government attributed to various talent admission schemes and the return of residents who left during the pandemic.

The Census and Statistics Department announced on Tuesday (Feb 20) that the city recorded 33,200 births last year, a 2 per cent increase over 2022, and the first uptick since 2017. The population rose 0.4 per cent to just over 7.5 million, growing for the second year in a row following the Covid-19 crisis.

The data showed 54,400 deaths were recorded last year, down 12 per cent over 2022, but still well above the number of births.

“The population registered an increase for the second consecutive year since normality resumed in Hong Kong,” a government spokesman said, referring to the end of pandemic restrictions.

“Many Hong Kong residents who stayed abroad during the epidemic have returned to Hong Kong throughout 2023.”

In the second half of last year, the city recorded a “considerable inflow” of permanent residents, while the population also grew due to the admission of mainland Chinese and foreigners through various schemes, he said.

The department said there was an inflow of 40,800 one-way permit holders and a net inflow of 10,800 Hong Kong residents last year.

More than 220,000 applications were received under various initiatives to attract both overseas and mainland professionals to the city, including 62,873 for the Top Talent Pass Scheme introduced in December 2022.

The scheme, designed for those who earn no less than HK$2.5 million (S$430,000) annually or are graduates of one of the world’s top 100 universities, had 49,737 successful main applicants admitted last year.

In assessing the population, the department also counts what it calls “usual residents”. This term covers permanent residents who have stayed in Hong Kong for at least three of the six months before the census or for at least three of the six months afterwards, irrespective of whether they were in the city during the count. There was a 0.1 per cent increase in the number of usual residents last year.

There was also an increase of 10.2 per cent in the “mobile residents” category – non-permanent residents who are in Kong Kong between one to three months out of six months over the census period.

The category can include people who spend most of the week on the mainland, but who stay in Hong Kong on a regular basis at weekends, students who study abroad but return on holidays, and people who live overseas but are frequent visitors to the city for business, work or family reasons.

Last October, city leader John Lee Ka-chiu announced couples would be given a HK$20,000 cash handout for each newborn in a bid to tackle Hong Kong’s low birth rate and encourage childbearing. The scheme, set to initially run for three years and cost HK$2.2 billion, was approved by the Legislative Council last month.

The government expects the number of annual births to rise by a fifth to about 39,000.

But Mr Felix Yan Ho-on, chairman of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Educators Association, said the increase of births last year was not enough to sustain the preschool sector.

“There are around 1,000 kindergartens in Hong Kong, and 700 more babies (born last year) means one kindergarten will not even get one more student on average,” he said. “And there is also uncertainty over whether these babies will stay in Hong Kong and enter local schools after three years.”

He said the government’s cash incentive would be a “bonus” but not a trigger for couples to have babies.

“People would not give birth because of this bonus, as it was said you need several million dollars to raise a kid,” he said.

Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai, the chair professor of population health at the department of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong, noted the number of marriages had been rising since the pandemic ended but they were not being matched by a similar increase in births.

The number of marriages increased by 11 per cent and by nearly 60 per cent in 2022 and 2023 respectively when compared with the previous year.

“This is the reason I am not optimistic about the future birth number,” Prof Yip said.

Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers have also emigrated overseas since January 2021 after the British government rolled out a bespoke pathway to citizenship in the wake of Beijing’s imposition of a national security law in 2020.

According to data from the country’s Home Office, about 184,700 Hongkongers have successfully applied for British National (Overseas) visas to settle in the country since the scheme’s launch in 2021.

The visas allow them to live, study and work in Britain, as well as apply for permanent residency after living in the United Kingdom for five years, followed by citizenship a year after.

Several Western countries, including Canada and Australia, have also offered “lifeboat” settlement schemes to Hongkongers. SCMP