Elderly in Hong Kong looking to China for affordable care in retirement

HONG KONG: After spending time with his 84-year-old mother in a senior care home in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, David Lee walked up to the supervisor and asked to reserve a place there for his own retirement.

Lee, a 56-year-old from just across the border in Hong Kong, moved his mother, who has Alzheimer’s and other ailments, into Yee Hong Heights two months ago as it became more difficult for him to care for her.

An increasing number of people like him are moving outside Hong Kong – one of the world’s most expensive cities – to mainland China for cheaper and better retirement options.

“My mother had been queuing for two years for a space in a senior care home in Hong Kong, and she only waited two months before getting a space here,” Lee said.

It is a marked departure from the scepticism that greeted the Hong Kong government a few years ago when it tried to encourage seniors to retire in China’s Guangdong province as part of an effort to ease a housing shortage.

Many then were concerned about cultural differences, medical services and a lack of insurance coverage in the mainland.

But faster transport links to the mainland and an integration push by the Hong Kong and Chinese central governments under the Greater Bay Area initiative have helped ease some of those fears.

The senior care market in China is estimated to grow to 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.12 trillion) by 2020 and to 20 trillion by 2030, from 5 trillion yuan in 2016. That has led to a flood of investors from Hong Kong and overseas.

New World Development, a major Hong Kong developer, said it planned to expand “Humansa” – a senior healthcare and rehabilitation service it launched late last year – into Shenzhen, Foshan, Shunde and other cities in the mainland this year.

It has so far invested HK$400 million ($51.13 million) in the “high-quality and personalised” service, and owns about 1,000 beds in Hong Kong. In five years, it plans to increase the number to 4,000 in the Greater Bay Area, it said.

Baring Private Equity told an industry summit recently that it planned to invest in senior housing in the Greater Bay Area.

ROOM TO GROW

So far, there are at least five senior homes in Guangdong opened by Hong Kong investors or non-government organizations, providing over 2,000 beds, official data show.

According to an official Hong Kong survey, 77,000 people from Hong Kong 65 and older lived in Guangdong in 2016.

Hong Kong’s Labour and Welfare Bureau forecast there would be a shortage of 11,600 subsidised beds for elderly care in the 2026 fiscal year. That’s the equivalent of about 70 senior care homes.

A room in one Chinese elderly home serving Hong Kong clients costs less than $1,000 a month, just a fraction of the $2,000-$5,000 charged for a mid- to high-end facility in Hong Kong.

Elderly Hong Kongers who cannot afford those rates wait 37 months on average for subsidised senior housing, and the average room is 6.5 square metres, compared with 30 square metres in the mainland.

To encourage more seniors to retire in mainland China, the Hong Kong government grants social security assistance to underprivileged elderly in Guangdong and Fujian provinces.

The government also plans to grant additional old-age living allowances starting in 2020 for people living in the two provinces.