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Moving to my next point, the social effects of high property prices in Hong Kong, this
can perhaps best be illustrated by the study of the Tokyo property bubble by Dorothy Chan
in 2009. As you can see from the slide, that research showed that four out of five university
graduates living in Tokyo, were more likely to stay living with their parents well into
their late 20s, and even mid 30s, if the property prices were seen to be too high for fresh
graduates. As that paper argued, this means that these so called 'parasite singles',
can still be dependent on their parents and they often even lack basic domestic skills.
Chan gave the example of adult males not being able to boil an egg, while adult females could
not use a washing machine or iron their clothes. However, there are some problems of trying
to translate the findings of this study to Hong Kong; first the sample size used by Chan
was very small, with only 15 males, and 9 females being interviewed; second the family
social structure in Tokyo is different to that of Hong Kong; therefore, it is questionable
whether all the social effects of a property bubble as seen in Tokyo will also be seen
in Hong Kong. Perhaps younger people in Hong Kong are more independently minded, so they
would not want to stay living with their parents; instead they might share flats with friends.
More details of this paper are in the reference list at the end of my presentation if you'd
like to find out more. My next point concerns the possibility of social upheaval...