AFTER a career as a human resources executive in Hong Kong, Grace Sin is happily retired.

The 84-year-old keeps busy at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Helping Hand Zhaoqing Home for the Elderly, chatting with residents and staff, playing mahjong, clocking 7,000 daily steps on strolls around the spacious grounds and occasionally dabbling in calligraphy and karaoke.

Sin, though, no longer lives in Hong Kong. Despite its name, the home lies 193 km from Hong Kong—in the city of Zhaoqing, in the mainland’s Guangdong province.

She moved there in October, drawn by the community, level of care and bigger spaces on offer. “Everything here is comfortable, and I can easily travel to Hong Kong whenever I want,” she says. “In Hong Kong the homes are small, and there are so many people.”

Sin is one of a growing number of Hong Kong elderly relocating to retirement homes in mainland China, drawn by improved transport networks, cheaper and better homes and changing government policies.

Hong Kong suffers from an acute shortage of accommodation for elderly people, with 16,000 on a waiting list for subsidised residential care services and placements taking as long as 16 months.

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In the coming months, the Hong Kong government plans to start letting seniors use medical expense vouchers at seven health-care facilities in the Greater Bay Area, which includes nine cities in Guangdong. 

The government has also recently extended a scheme that allows Hong Kong elderly to continue receiving subsidsed services at a hospital in Shenzhen. That policy shift is aimed at helping Hong Kong, which has one of the longest life expectancies in the world, deal with a rapidly graying population: By 2046, more than one in three residents will be 65 or older.

For a 180-square-foot room with a park view and ensuite bathroom, residents pay about 5,100 yuan (S$953) a month — about a quarter of the cost in Hong Kong. The facility has a gym, a vegetable garden, and goats and cats for residents to care for and play with.

All of the staff speak Sin’s native Cantonese — increasingly rare in the mainland, with the growing dominance of Mandarin. And with the resumption of high-speed rail after the pandemic, travel time has been cut in half, to just two hours, making it easier to get together with family and friends.

“Before, no one really knew about it, or it was too far and too scary,” says Sandy Macalister, chief executive of Helping Hand, a non-governmental organisation that operates homes and supports Hong Kong seniors.

One issue was that people who came for a trial stay risked losing their place on the government’s waiting list for a spot in a Hong Kong home. “Suddenly the government has seen the advantages,” Macalister says.

One concern in Hong Kong is a lack of any land specifically set aside for senior housing. That means retirement homes must be built in places that can be used for any purpose, and developers typically favour projects that can be sold or rented to younger people, according to a report by the Urban Land Institute.

“One of the key recommendations that we have is a more thoughtful policy,” says Alan Beebe, Asia Pacific chief executive officer of the ULI, a network of real estate experts. “To think of ways that the public and private sector can work together in a more meaningful way.”

China Taiping Insurance Group says its senior home in Guangzhou received its first Hong Kong resident in January, and the company has developed insurance policies aimed at Hong Kong elderly who plan to retire in the Greater Bay Area.

At Helping Hand, inquiries have doubled since 2022, and the Zhaoqing home hopes to have 110 residents by December, up from 95 today. Management aims to boost capacity by about 30 per cent this year, and in February it received approval for government subsidies to cover nursing care for more complex medical needs.

For seniors in Hong Kong, tours and overnight trials at nursing homes in Guangdong have become something of a recreational outing.

The New Territories Association of Societies, an umbrella group of hundreds of community organisations, brings Hong Kong seniors to a home in Shenzhen, where participants can get traditional Chinese medicine treatments, attend exercise classes and sit in on talks on technology.

Day trips are free, and overnight stays cost around HK$300 (S$51). “Most of our participants are still young, in their early 60s,” says Leung Che Cheung, the group’s president. “But they want to see what’s available.” BLOOMBERG