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Parents' flat-out phobia
Qi Luo
Monday, December 16, 2013

The biggest concern of parents is whether their children can eventually own their own homes.
A poll by the Chinese University of Hong Kong shows 70 percent of 1,855 families interviewed early this year said they are under pressure as they fear their children will be homeless.
Almost half of these said the pressure is high or very high.
Other serious concerns to emerge from the survey commissioned by Caritas Family Crisis Support Centre are whether their children can effectively compete in society and whether they will have successful marriages.
About 60 percent are stressed by whether they can save enough for their children's marriages while 43 percent are worried about the competition their children will have to face.
Only 9.5 percent find it very difficult to communicate with their children.
The survey also revealed that the pressure parents feel is directly related to the money they earn, with those getting less than HK$20,000 a month grouped as low income, HK$20,000 to HK$49,000 middle income and those above HK$50,000 well off.
The flat pressure is felt by 53 percent in the low-income bracket, 50 percent in the middle-income group and 29 percent of the well off.
The top concerns of parents with children attending secondary school are their long-term education and the competition they will face, with the middle- income group the most affected at 44 percent.
When it comes to the parents' own plans for the next 10 years, the higher- salaried group is the more optimistic at 29 percent.

Just 18 percent of those with middle incomes are confident of their future and only 17 percent in the low-income group are looking forward to the next 10 years.
But the higher-income families are more pessimistic about their children's future.
Just 7 percent feel their children face a better future than their generation, compared with 12 percent in the middle-income families and 21 percent of the low-income group.
More than half of all parents do not see any real improvement in the opportunities brought by the integration of the Hong Kong and mainland economies.
A mother in the middle-income group said that when her generation was growing up, they had some hope of eventually buying a flat but that she cannot see the same for her son who has just started work.
Caritas suggested the government should develop different support measures for young people, helping them to buy flats, building more dormitories and subsidized housing and increasing the supply of cheaper and smaller flats.