The number of registered births in Hong Kong plunged to a record low of 31,714 in 2025, despite a range of government incentives to encourage families to have more children, ending two years of growth, the Post has learned.
The figure was also well below the government’s target of increasing births by 20 per cent from the previous historic low recorded in 2022.
Experts and parents said the government needed to tackle the underlying causes of the city’s low birth rates.
“Those incentives were short-term only and did not motivate me to have my second child last year,” Lilian Chan Lai-lai told the Post on Wednesday.
She said the government needed to offer “longer-term measures” such as ensuring housing security for newborns “to encourage young people to have children”.
