I
f you’re a parent and single in
Hong Kong, you’re not alone.
Today, with one in ten children
in Hong Kong being brought
up in a single-parent household, look
around any subway, bus or restaurant
and you’re certainly sharing glances
with parents who, for a number of
reasons, are bringing up a child alone.
Tracey Wan, an editor who grew
up in Hong Kong, became a single
mum in 1999 when the father of her
son left her for another woman he
met while working in China. Her son,
Aaron, is now almost 14 years old, and
Tracey thinks attitudes and support for
single-parent families have changed
a lot during this time. “These days,
everyone knows a single parent. It’s
very much the norm,” she says. “When
I first became a single parent, there
weren’t so many others. The couples I
knew would tend to invite only other
couples to social occasions, while my
single friends were still busy being
single. It was very lonely at times.”
So what has changed? At the 2011
census, just over 81,000 single-parent
households were recorded in Hong
Kong. With an increase of almost 25
per cent since the last count in 2001,
single-parent households are now very
much a part of Hong Kong’s societal
make-up.
The figures also reveal something
else that’s interesting. While it’s
easy to assume that single parents
are divorced women, that would be
missing the increasing segment of
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