Modeling Internal Movement of Children Born in Hong Kong to Nonlocal Mothers

In Hong Kong, approximately 300,000 children were born to Mainland China couples in the period 1991–2012. According to Basic Law, the mini constitution of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government, these parents do not have residence rights, but their children do. As a result, most of these children have returned to Mainland China with their parents. An important consideration for policymakers is how many of these children (who are now adults in some cases) will return to Hong Kong for good, and when, as this will have a significant impact on social service provision, especially in the education sector, where it will be necessary to ensure there is capacity to meet the additional demand. Prior survey results conducted by the government suggested that more than 50% of these children would return to Hong Kong before age six. It is important to be able to provide a timely projection of the demand into the future. Here, we make use of the immigration records on the actual movement of these children and propose a Markov chain model to estimate their return rates in the future. Our results show that only about 25% of these children would return rather than 50% estimated by the survey. We also find that parents with better educational attainment levels are associated with lower return rates of their children. Timely and relevant social and public policies are needed to prepare for their return to minimize disruption to the local population and promote social harmony for the whole community.