Tendency of Late Marriage in Hong Kong

In traditional society, people are supposed to get married in an early age. However, things have been changed over time. Nowadays, people prefer to getting married late in Hong Kong. According to the government research, there are more and more people choose to get married between the age of 35 to 40 or even decide not to get married. Late marriage may lead to the low birth rate, which could make Hong Kong face the problem of a lack of manpower. As a result, it may cause the decline in productivity and a weakening economy. In order to solve this problem, we should look into the issue deeply to find out the reasons for this scenario.

To begin with, the astronomical prices of houses make people in Hong Kong are afraid of getting married. As we all know, the price of houses of Hong Kong is the highest in the world so that many people cannot afford them. According to the largest real estate statistics website, Property Guide Global, Hong Kong people have to eat and drink nothing for 28 years if they want to buy a house. Under the high pressure to buy a house, no wonder people in Hong Kong prefer to marry late. Take my sister as an example, she have known her boyfriend in Hong Kong for 5 years. However, they do not get married as the high price of the house in Hong Kong. “Houses in Hong Kong are very expensive and they cannot imagine how to afford paying rent or mortgage after getting married.” my sister told me. Obviously, it is a common problem in Hong Kong---the trend of late marriage is generated by the high price of the houses in Hong Kong.

Likewise, a lack of time is one of the reasons for the phenomenon as well. Since the high cost of living in Hong Kong, people work very hard in order to earn more money. They always need to work for the whole day so that they even do not have time to build a new relationship, let alone marriage. Apart from this, nowadays, Hong Kong people live in a metropolitan city stressfully and in a fast paced lifestyle. In order to satisfy the high expectations of society and to pursue high quality of life, they believe having a higher education level is a means to get a high position. Therefore, many people would like to get a master or even a doctor degree. It is obvious that people do not have enough time to get along with their partner and that is why they will not get married in an early age.

Additionally, some social realities may lead to the trend of late marriage in a more remote way. On the one hand, the high divorce rate in Hong Kong may play an important role in late marriage. For example, we always hear some celebrities getting divorced on TV. This kind of news increases our fear of getting married, when we hear this kind of news, we cannot help thinking about the reasons for the divorce. They may have loved each other for 5 or even 10 years but this relationship would be ended by divorce. These facts make people do not dare to get married easily. According to the statistics provided by Hong Kong government, the rate of divorce in Hong Kong is one of the top six in the world. Conspicuously, the high divorce rate makes a great influence to the new generation in Hong Kong. Frequently quarrels between their parents makes the generation after 80 s and 90 s lose faith in love. They begin to suspect whether marriage can bring happiness to them or not. They will not get married until they ensure they find the right person.

On the other hand, with the development of society, women are able to get an equal level of education with men, which may have a profound impact on the women to treat marriage. The magazine< Harvard Business Review> (Ibarra, H. & Obodaru, O. (2009.January 10.) Women and the Vision Thing. Harvard Business Review. ) points out that women are better leaders than men. In the modern city, it is unnecessary for a woman to make a live relying on a man anymore, which leads to the common case that women would make a high demand on their partner. Consequently, they prefer spending more time on choosing a perfect partner than getting married early. A research done by Rui Kohiyama (2012), a professor of Tokyo Woman's Christian University, exemplifies that the higher position and education level a women gets, the higher risk of late marriage they will have. Some women in Hong Kong enjoy being single because most of them are satisfied with the free life style. Someone who was interviewed in the report said: “Now that I can pay for myself. Why I have to find a partner to limit my freedom?” Worse still, a few of them may even regard getting married as they think marriage is a “grave” of their freedom.

In conclusion, the phenomenon that people in Hong Kong tend to marry late not only because of the astronomical prices of houses in Hong Kong, but also due to lack of time. Besides, some social realities like high divorce rate in Hong Kong and equal education between men and women can account for the scenario of late marriage indirectly as well.