Thousands of taxi drivers over 60: the other side of Hong Kong’s crisis
According to official licence statistics, as many as 30,000 are aged between 70 and 79. This reflects not only the ageing population but also the financial difficulties faced by those who lost their jobs during the Covid pandemic. And with pensions insufficient to cover their expenses, many make ends meet by working as taxi drivers.
Milan (AsiaNews) – “In Hong Kong, as long as you’re willing to work, you won’t go hungry.” This is a phrase often repeated by Zheng Jinhui, one of the many taxi drivers in their seventies living in the former British colony, now a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
According to statistics from Hong Kong’s Department of Transport and Logistics, the average age of taxi drivers on the island is 58, with over 110,000 licensed drivers aged over 60 and around 30,000 aged between 70 and 79.
Moreover, in 2021 Hong Kong joined the category of ‘super-aged societies’, with the population aged 65 and over accounting for more than 20 per cent of the total population. According to a report by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, this proportion is set to rise to 36 per cent by 2046, meaning that a third of the inhabitants of the former British colony will be elderly.
Born in 1953, Zheng Jinhui is originally from Chaoyang – a district in the southern province of Guangdong – and has over fifty years’ driving experience. His working day begins between six and seven in the morning and ends around four or five in the afternoon, after a gruelling shift of around ten hours.
Zheng has no choice but to work these hours, as his entire family depends on his salary for their livelihood – a family comprising his elderly, ailing wife and his mother, who is in her nineties and uses a wheelchair. Until a few years ago, he was also supporting his three children, who moved abroad after graduating and rarely return home.
The Zheng family’s monthly expenditure on daily necessities exceeds 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (just over 1,100 euros – ed.), to which must be added daily fixed costs of around 600 HKD, including the hire of the car he uses for work and fuel. When business is good, she manages to earn a net profit of 500 HKD; otherwise, she might not even cover the cost of the hire.
Although she receives a monthly elderly allowance of 4,250 HKD (around 470 euros – ed.), provided by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, half of this sum is used to cover her mother’s care, which she provides alongside her siblings.
As reported in an article in the Chinese weekly Nanfang Zhoumo, Zheng’s situation is typical of that of most of his colleagues.
According to Wang Xiaohu, deputy dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at City University of Hong Kong, many older people prefer not to retire because they fear they will get bored staying at home and believe that the flexibility of a job in the taxi industry might suit them. But the deeper reason for this choice is that, without a job, they would risk falling into poverty.
Wang’s research has revealed that there is a significant wealth gap in Hong Kong, with a large proportion of the impoverished population consisting of older people. Although those in the lowest income brackets benefit from public housing and free public healthcare – thus ensuring their basic needs are met – they still struggle to cover their daily expenses.
“It’s not that I don’t want to retire, it’s that I can’t,” says Huang Jianqiang, 62, a “newcomer” to the fleet of silver-haired taxi drivers.
Huang only started working in the taxi industry two years ago. Before that, he was a floor manager at a well-known restaurant chain in Hong Kong, earning a steady monthly salary of over 30,000 HKD (3,350 euros – ed.) and leading a comfortable and respectable life.
Made redundant due to the economic crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic, he struggled for a long time to find another job. “I sent out dozens of CVs, but either employers thought I was too old, or they cut my salary by more than half. I simply couldn’t support my family,” he said.
As confirmed by a survey by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the unemployed aged over 50 generally see their salaries drop by more than 30% when they find new jobs.
After much thought, Huang therefore decided to obtain a licence to become a taxi driver.
The story of Chen Jinhui, aged 70, is similar to that of his colleague. Twenty years ago, Chen worked as a clerk at a foreign bank in Hong Kong; in the eyes of others, he was a respectable and stable ‘white-collar’ worker. In 2014, however, the bank embarked on a comprehensive digital overhaul and, feeling ill-equipped to cope with the many changes, he decided to hand in his notice. However, as he was already nearly sixty, certain jobs were no longer an option. He tried working as a waiter, but an old knee injury made it impossible for him to walk and stand for long hours. After much searching, Chen Jinhui discovered that driving a taxi was his only remaining option.
“In Hong Kong, retirement isn’t based on age, but on having money,” said Liu Zhiqiang, 63, who has been working as a night-shift taxi driver for over a decade. Although he receives the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s old-age allowance of 1,570 HKD, by his own admission, “that little money disappears after just a few meals”. Liu lives in social housing in Hong Kong, for which he pays HKD 2,000 a month in rent, and his savings are running out. As a result, he is considering moving to mainland China, where care homes are much more affordable than those in Hong Kong.
Fang Haisheng, a 72-year-old taxi driver, would not even be eligible for a care home. With a mortgage of over 10,000 HKD a month to pay off over the next ten years, plus the hire of the vehicle he uses for work and various daily expenses, he struggles to make ends meet. His son, an office worker, can barely support himself; it would be unthinkable for him to provide for his parents.
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19/04/2007
