How influential is home ownership affecting delay of marriage of young adult in Hong Kong?

Abstract

In Hong Kong, public discussions and news reports revealed that many young adults were struggle to acquire home ownership and delayed their marriage as a result. Statistics from Census and Statistics Department also revealed that the median age of marriage was gradually increasing throughout the past decades. It was understood that there were a lot of benefit associated with home ownership, especially in Hong Kong where housing property is always the most inflated items among all of the consumable goods. In this paper, a primary quantitative research with the sample size of 100 and a primary qualitative research with four selected interviewees were carried out to study the influence of home ownership to the delay of marriage among the young adults in Hong Kong. The relationship was established by direct answer and descriptive findings from the respondents. The rationale for different housing tenure users were also exanimated in the qualitative research. The influence of home ownership on delay of marriage was found significant among the groups of respondent who were insisted on home ownership and would not consider other housing tenures as alternative options. Fertility plan after marriage, income level before marriage and education level before marriage were also affecting the significance of the influence in certain extent. Young adults were found unnecessarily delayed their marriage for the pursuance of home ownership without thoroughly consider all of their available housing tenures. The availability of alternatives to home ownership was also found limited to the young adults in this research.