The number of young people in Hong Kong applying for public rental flats has dropped substantially over the past four years, reflecting that most of them are not “lying flat”, the city’s housing minister has said.
Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin made the comments on Saturday, months after several senior officials urged the city’s youth to avoid jeopardising their careers to remain eligible for public housing.
“There have always been some voices in society questioning the ambition of Hong Kong’s youth, even going as far as suggesting that young people are ‘lying flat’ and just waiting for public housing,” she said on social media.
The term “lying flat” is used in mainland China to describe people who do the bare minimum to get by, seeking little more than the essentials for survival.
“We have reviewed data showing that most young people in Hong Kong are indeed ambitious, as evidenced by the overall decline in applications for public housing.”
For general applicants, from the financial year 2019-20 to 2023-24, there was a significant drop in public housing applications among those under 30 years old, decreasing by about 46 per cent from 16,000 to 8,600 cases, she said.
