Many of the ladies in the city may have to look to the mainland or elsewhere if they don't want to remain single. Photo: Bloomberg
Here’s why a walk down the aisle eludes many HK women
Gender imbalance in Hong Kong is worsening, and many of the girls in the city who have reached marriageable age may have to look to the mainland or elsewhere if they don’t want to remain single.
As of last year, there were 3.32 million males and 3.54 million females in Hong Kong, or 938 males for every 1,000 females, compared with 1,087 males for every 1,000 females in 1981, Apple Daily reported on Friday, citing data released by the Census and Statistics Bureau. If foreign maids are included, there were only 864 males for every 1,000 females.
In its latest report, the bureau said gender imbalance has been aggravated by a rising influx of mainland females who have come to live with their Hong Kong husbands, as well as foreign maids.
As a result, more women in the city are single. As of 2013, there were 923,000 unmarried females, of whom 390,000 were over 30. Meanwhile, 7,506 Hong Kong females married mainland men last year, an increase of about 10 percent from 2012 and from just over 600 thirty years ago. The number of marriages between Hong Kong men and mainland women dropped to 19,554 from 20,621 in the previous year.
The mean age of Hong Kong women who got married for the first time last year was 28.9, up from 23.9 in 1981, while their mean age when they gave birth to their first child was 31.3. For men, the mean age for first marriage was 31.1, up from 27 in 1981.
As the number of women in the city increased, the ranks of senior female government officials also swelled. There were 429 directorate officers in the Hong Kong government as of 2013, up from just 35 in 1981.
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