Women's low sex drive blamed for Hong Kong's falling birth rate

Lack of a satisfactory sex life among women has been singled out as a reason for Hong Kong's low fertility rate.

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Dr Sue Lo Seen-tsing encourages couples to have more sexual communication. Photo: David Wong

Published: 5:45am, 25 Sep 2014Updated: 8:43am, 25 Sep 2014

Lack of a satisfactory sex life among women has been singled out as a reason for Hong Kong's low fertility rate, the city's Family Planning Association said yesterday.

Women in the high-pressure city tend to lack sexual desire and may not experience orgasm, according to the Association in an attempt to highlight the problems.

Hong Kong's birth rate has dropped steadily - from 1,933 births for every 1,000 women in 1981, to 1,285 in 2012.

The poll, carried out by the Family Planning Association, found that six in 10 women had at least one sexual problem and that traditional taboos about discussing sex were making the problems difficult to solve.

"[In] Chinese culture, sex is really a taboo," Dr Sue Lo Seen-tsing, a senior doctor with the association, said in a press conference yesterday.

"Women rarely talk about sex. They don't describe having no desire as a problem because they are not supposed to have any desire."

Lo encouraged couples at reproductive age to have more sexual communication with their partners. They should take turns to initiate sex, overcome shyness when talking about sex and indulge in foreplay. Photo: Dickson Lee

The association polled around 2,100 ethnic Chinese women aged between 21 and 40 from December 2007 to December 2009, and found almost six out of 10 had at least one sexual problem.