Will fixing Hong Kong’s childcare bottleneck help lift the city’s birth rate?

Shortly after Erica Lam found out she was pregnant with her second child, submitting a day care application for her unborn daughter became a top priority, as places at Hong Kong childcare centres were insufficient to meet demand.Even though Lam, a nurse in her early forties, tried to secure a place early, her daughter Ho-yan only managed to enrol in day care services operated by the Sheng Kung Hui church’s St Christopher’s Home, a social welfare group, when she turned eight months old.Meanwhile, her elder son, born in late 2020, had not been able to secure a place. The boy’s grandparents helped care for him during that period.