1 in 5 Hong Kong kids aspire to teach when they grow up

What do you want to be when you grow up? We may all have been asked this many times in our childhood, yet the question never seems to get old.

So when Adecco Hong Kong set out to speak to children in Hong Kong aged between seven to 14 years, it provided an interesting insight into the city-state's future workforce's aspirations.

For the third year running, teaching was the career of choice, with close to one in five children (19%) acknowledging that it is a meaningful job to hold.

They also realised they can have more holidays as a teacher, and can spare more time to take care of family, displaying their early emphasis on work-life balance as a generation.

However, more than a quarter (27%) expect to be paid HK$1,000 or less per month for their efforts, while the remainder opted for a range of HK$10,000-30,000.

One particularly ambitious respondent expects a one million Hong Kong dollar salary each month.

Money, in fact, seemed to be a driving factor for some of the other career choices, where one eight-year-old boy said he wants to be "rich" when he grows up, and another would rather opt for the slightly easier route - "wealthy second generation kid".

Apart from the teaching profession, 51% overall expected a monthly income of HK$1,000-10,000, and a lesser 23% expected HK$20,000-50,000.

What would you do if you were chief executive?

Their first three actions if these kids were made chief executive of Hong Kong? Increase public money handouts (12%); eliminate school, homework and examinations (11%); and increase the availability of affordable public housing (10%).

The respondents also expressed a strong desire to help the underprivileged through monetary and housing support.

When asked about which was their favourite country to live in aside from Hong Kong, one third (33%) preferred Japan, followed by Australia (12%) and the United States (12%), and Canada (11%).

Audrey Low, country manager of Adecco Hong Kong and Macau, said: "Our future workforce is already being affected by factors in their daily life from observing their parents’work-life balance, or lack thereof, to their current studying and living conditions."

"This suggests a heightened emphasis on not only a good remuneration package for our future workers, but also the quality of life and benefits that a company can offer them outside of work."

Lead image: Shutterstock