Going Global or Going Home? Unpacking Middle-Aged Hong Kongers’ Emigration Preferences and Intentions
HKUST IEMS Thought Leadership Brief No. 85
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This study strongly suggests that Hong Kong residents who plan on retiring before the legal retirement age are more intent on emigrating away from Hong Kong. There is also strong evidence that individuals who plan on enrolling in the CSSA or Guangdong or Fujian social welfare schemes are more likely to prefer mainland China as their retirement destination.
The results strongly indicate that more convenient transportation is a significant pull factor for those intending to emigrate to mainland China, whereas employment opportunity is a significant pull factor for those intent on emigrating overseas. The results moderately indicate that Hong Kong residents with post-secondary education are more intent on emigrating away from Hong Kong. The data also moderately suggest that individuals planning on enrolling in the CSSA or Elderly Health Care Voucher at the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital are less intent on emigrating. There is moderate evidence that the respondents closest to retirement age are more likely to prefer mainland China as their migration destination.
About the authors
Jeffrey Chow is a Research Assistant Professor at the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Dr. Chow holds a PhD from Yale University and Master of Environmental Management and Master of Forestry degrees from Duke University. His peer-reviewed publications have appeared in Science, PLOS One, Land Economics, the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, Forest Policy and Economics, the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, and elsewhere. His research focuses on climate change economics and policy, including climate adaptation and migration.
Mengyuan Niu is a PhD student in the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Mengyuan has cultivated her interest in the social relationships, migration, and mental health of the elderly population. Currently, she is particularly passionate about investigating the ethnic minority elderly group in Hong Kong, including their mental health, family relations, and cultural integration. She has published her peer-reviewed article in Heliyon.
Stuart Gietel-Basten is Professor of Social Science and Public Policy, Associate Dean (Research) School of Humanities and Social Science, and Associate Director of the Leadership and Public Policy Executive Education Program, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also a Faculty Associate of HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies. His research covers the links between population and policy, with a regional focus on Asia. In particular, he is interested in the emergence of low fertility across the region, and the consequences of this in terms of population ageing and growth. He has been published in a number of major journals in demography and other social science subjects. In 2017, his first book, Why Demography Matters (co-written with Danny Dorling), was published. He is also a regular contributor to the South China Morning Post and China Daily.
Related event
Prof Stuart Gietel-Basten, lead of the project, and Jeff Tang, expert in human capital at EY, shared their insights into the region's labour market dynamics at the event "Labour Force Dynamics at the Greater Bay Area - HKUST IEMS-EY Emerging Markets Insights series" on 7 May 2024. Find out more about the event here >>
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