Hong Kong to consider IVF support for women over 40

On Wednesday, while sharing my thoughts on Hong Kong's latest fertility boosters announced in the 2026 Policy Address, I wrote the following about their plan to increase the number of spots for publicly funded IVF:

If I recall correctly, there's also an upper age limit <on publicly funded IVF> for the prospective mother of 39 years of age. Would be nice if they consider increasing that age limit a bit since many of people who are having trouble also waited too long.

Very happy to read in the SCMP that I wasn't the only one thinking this way and a caller brought up the age limit issue with CE Lee on a radio program this past Thursday:

Hong Kong’s leader has vowed to examine whether the government can better support women aged over 40 seeking assisted reproductive treatment, while acknowledging that financial incentives alone will not reverse the city’s falling birth rate.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu made the pledge during a radio phone-in programme on Thursday, when residents described obstacles to having children, including job insecurity, a day after the leader unveiled a raft of measures aimed at boosting the birth rate.

Many people go through quite a long journey getting themselves into a position where they are ready to have children. This is especially true in a very expensive, competitive city like Hong Kong where many residents are immigrants like myself from overseas or the mainland. I briefly looked at the information on government-funded IVF assuming that because of our age we would run into difficulties and was very disappointed to see that we were already too old. In our case, we were very lucky in that we needed no help at all, but we also know couples our age that were not so lucky.