Pay People To Have Babies, Freeze Eggs: Regina Ip

The government should pay Hongkongers to have babies and offer subsidies to encourage people to freeze their eggs or sperm for later use, the New People's Party said on Thursday.

The party put forward the ideas as it called for measures in the chief executive's upcoming policy address to help tackle the city's low birth rate and ageing population.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with the CE, party chairwoman Regina Ip said the administration should hand out a "baby bonus" to people who have kids.

"The easiest way to encourage childbirth, as many foreign countries are doing, is to provide a baby bonus. We have proposed this before," said Ip, who's also the convenor of the Executive Council.

"For every family, we can give them a HK$20,000 bonus. Of course it may not be enough to compensate the cost of raising a child, but it will help to encourage families to have a baby."

Ip also said women should be given a HK$50,000 subsidy to freeze their eggs and men the same amount to freeze their sperm, given that such services are expensive.

She said people should get the freezing done while they are young, adding that many focus on their careers rather than having a family.