More than a fifth of Hong Kong youths were born on the mainland in an era which has seen the city's youth population decline nearly 300,000 over the past three decades to 860,992 in 2011.

The figures, are revealed in the release of the latest 2011 population census thematic report, focusing on youth.

The figures underscore the rather bleak prospects for a looming labor shortage in the SAR, with a rapidly aging population and a sharply falling youth population. The proportion of youths in the city peaked in 1981 when they represented 22.5 percent of the total population. Young people constituted only 12.6 percent of the population in 2011.

The figures also reveal some other significant social changes. The proportion of young people able to speak Putonghua has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to the survey, from 39.1 percent in 2011 to 68.7 percent in 2011. With 98.5 percent of the population conversant in Cantonese, the number of English speaking youths rose slightly to 71.4 percent, up from 67.9 percent in 2001.

The report said, "As a result of the influx of young one-way permit holders from the mainland over the past 10 years, there were more youths who were born (on the mainland, Taiwan and Macao)," which were the places of birth for 21.9 percent of local youths aged 16 to 24 in 2011, compared to just over 16 percent in 2001.

Local children born in Canada comprised the second largest group of non-locally born children at 0.8 percent, followed by the US at 0.5 percent.

Just under three quarters of youths were born locally at 74.6 percent, while 2.2 percent were born elsewhere.

According to a Census and Statistics Department's study into Hong Kong's fertility trends released in November last year, the number of births recorded between 2001 and 2011 nearly doubled during the period, but resulted not from an increase in the Hong Kong fertility rate but the increasing number of children born locally to mainland women.

There were 7,810 such births in 2001 out of 48,219 births in total, representing 16 percent of all births.

The number of babies born to mainland women rose to 37,253 out of a total of 82,095 births in 2011, representing 45 percent of all births.

Birth rates are expected to drop sharply in the coming year after Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying instituted a zero quota for births to mainland women except for the wives of Hong Kong residents. Cross-border efforts to bar mainland women from entering Hong Kong for delivery have been stepped-up.

Paul Yip, professor of social administration from the University of Hong Kong and population policy steering committee member, said the government needed to put greater emphasis on attracting overseas talent to tackle the city's low birth rate and aging population.

He said recent immigration figures revealed the city's Quality Migrant Admissions Scheme was falling short of expectations with less than a third of the plan's annual quota filled in the first 11 months of 2012.

tim@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 01/22/2013 page1)