Hong Kong is ageing, but the real question is where people age

AdvertisementHong Kong societyOpinionHong Kong OpinionTerry LumOpinionHong Kong is ageing, but the real question is where people ageThe city’s rapid ageing need not turn into a crisis as long as it can look beyond its borders and tap into regional healthcare systems 3-MIN READ3-MINTerry LumPublished: 5:30am, 18 Apr 2026In recent years, warnings about Hong Kong’s rapidly ageing population have become increasingly urgent. Long hospital waits, chronic shortages in long-term care and a shrinking working-age population have led many policymakers and researchers to portray ageing as an approaching demographic crisis that a small, densely populated city might be unable to absorb.In some quarters, this has fuelled dire predictions about the sustainability of Hong Kong’s healthcare and social care systems. This diagnosis, however, only reflects one particular way of seeing the problem. Much of today’s debate continues to assume that solutions must be found within Hong Kong alone, as if this was a demographically sealed city state. When ageing is viewed through this lens, rising demand for healthcare appears destined to overwhelm local capacity.AdvertisementTo be fair, the government has not stood still. In recent years, it has extended elderly healthcare vouchers to designated medical institutions across the Greater Bay Area and promoted cross-boundary nursing-home placement through the Residential Care Services Scheme in Guangdong.These initiatives have widened choices for older people and helped relieve pressure at the margins. However, these are still largely treated as supplements to a Hong Kong-centred system instead of building blocks of a fundamentally metropolitan approach to health and social care.AdvertisementWhat is striking is that policymakers think differently in other domains. In policy areas like innovation, finance and talent, Hong Kong is now widely understood as a core city within the Greater Bay Area. Policymaking around health and social care has yet to make the same conceptual leap. AdvertisementSelect VoiceSelect Speed0.8x0.9x1.0x1.1x1.2x1.5x1.75x00:0000:001.00x