ENG-1990 — Page 21

SHAPING UP FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

in the future. In the future, just as at present, we cannot expect the metropolis to be indifferent to our decisions or intentions.

What we do have is a track record of stability and prosperity. Since it is the expressed desire of both present and future metropolitan powers that this should continue, it is not unreasonable to expect that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region enjoying a‘... high degree of autonomy...' under the Basic Law will be any more oppressed than under the command to the Governor in Letters Patent to do ‘... all things... according to Our Sign Manual and Signet, and according to such Instructions as may from time to time be given to him. ... In both cases these ultimate statements of authority are qualified by further constitutional restraints. It is not lack of paper that makes us speculate on our political future but the unpredictable nature of the future itself.

The People

What is more predictable is the nature of the population that will live here. One of the few long-term projections, carried to the next century, is the population projection for the year 2006.

At present there are almost one and a half times as many babies under one year old as there are people aged 60. By 2006 the number in both groups will be about the same. Thereafter the number aged 60 will increase very rapidly so that over the following 10 years the number will probably almost double.

Over the next fifteen years, the population will age. This will bring about an economically more active population which will increase faster than the dependent population. By 2006 people in the age range of 15 to 64 will increase from 69 per cent of the population to 72 per cent. Within the shrinking dependent population, the number of youngsters will diminish rapidly but will be partly offset by a growing number of old people. Youngsters aged below 15 will make up only 16 per cent of the population by 2006, a substantial reduction from the 22 per cent now. On the other hand, the proportion of old people aged 65 and above will rise from nine per cent to 12 per cent of the population.

The White Paper on Social Welfare is well seized of the onset of an increasingly elderly population and deals with the provision for those who will need help. What, then, for the healthy elderly?

There will be a requirement for some initiative to create opportunities for these people to do useful work. Not all of us over 60 will want to spend all our time in social centres for the elderly. Employers feeling the pinch of a labour shortage may create new opportunities but this is an area which the government, the largest employer with the greatest variety of employment, should pioneer. There is already a shortage of labour and it is not too soon to develop new ideas on filling some of the job vacancies with people past the retirement age but prepared to do some work. We may work a little more slowly and get tired a little more quickly, but it would be improvident to fail to provide opportunities for useful work.

Migration into and out of Hong Kong has always been a significant element affecting the growth of the population. The 1987 population study projected a net annual increase in population due to migration of around 14 000. Today when anyone talks about migration it is usually in terms of the 'brain drain' - the emigration of gifted people leaving Hong Kong before the changes they fear in 1997. From time to time surveys are published forecasting that we shall soon be bereft of whole professions. Of course this will not happen

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