Census

With the census occurring at the moment, I thought I’d have a look at some data compiled by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department after the previous census in 2001.One thing that caught my eye was the data on demographic characteristics:

Census Year	1991	1996	2001
Median Age	31	34	36
Sex Ratio (males per 1000 females)	1,038	1,000	960

Proportion of never-married population
Female	29%	28.9%	30.1%
Male	36.5%	34.2%	33.9%

It seems that between 1991 and 2001, the median age of the Hong Kong population had gotten older. This was attributed to 2 causes. The number and proportion of population below 15 years of age had fallen markedly, reflecting the sustained drop in fertility rates. At the same time, people are living longer as evidenced by the increase in the proportion of people over 65 years.

Of interest is the proportion of male to female in the population - this had fallen markedly………are men dying much younger than women? Do we have the reverse problem to mainland China? Are there more female babies being born? No, in fact,the proportion of females increased due to the influx of female foreign domestic helpers and mainland wives.

Another interesting statistic is the proportion of never married people. Did you ever realize it is so significant? Whilst there are articles on the Department’s website discussing gender imbalance and marriage prospects, there does not seem to be any explanation put forward as to why this is the case.

I will be very interested in seeing the outcome of this year’s census.


Meanwhile, a few words of wisdom:


MARRIAGE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

LONGEVITY
Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.