Paul Yip Siu-fai said Friday he was alarmed to read a Census and Statistics Department report which suggested more women were preferring to remain unmarried as they had no time to have children, while more Hong Kong men were going to the mainland to find wives.

"The environment in Hong Kong is not conducive to building close family relationships," said Yip who is also a senior lecturer of the statistics and actuarial science department at Hong Kong University. "When the environment is not family friendly, some people don't see the need to have a family."

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Other statistical data announced Thursday showed there were now more women than men in the SAR, with a ratio of 1,000 women to every 911 men last year compared with 1,037 men for every 1,000 women in 1996.

More people were choosing to get married when they were older. However, according to results of the 2006 by-census, the number of women who have never married rose from 28.9 percent in 1996 to 30.7 percent last year.

The figure for men remained fairly steady at 34.2 percent in 1996 and 34.3 percent last year.

The figures also showed the percentage of women in the work force rose from 49.2 in 1996 to 52.4 in 2006. The number of men in the work force dropped from 76.6 percent in 1996 to 69.2 last year.

Men were also increasingly looking for mainland brides.

Of the 50,300 marriages registered in Hong Kong last year, 28,000 involved mainland women. A further 10,000 men applied for certificates of absence of marriage to allow them to be married in the mainland.

Yip said the growing number of working women combined with a lower birth rate was unique to Hong Kong.

He said that in France, for instance, where 70 percent of the female population worked, the birth rate had also increased to 1.8 percent, compared with Hong Kong's 0.9 percent.

One reason for the low birth rate, he said, was the non family-friendly atmosphere of Hong Kong's work environment, where many employees work long hours and are forced to do overtime, leaving them with little time to spend with their families.

"In Hong Kong, the professional life competes with a private life, forcing people to choose between their careers and their families," he said.

"What we need is a change of employee mind-set which will allow people to strike a balance between work and the family."

He also urged a change in values, saying owning a flat and a car should not be prerequisites to getting married.

Yip urged both men and women to have more realistic expectations when looking for a partner.

"Women should be prepared to accept the fact that the man may have a lower educational background or earn less than they do," he said.

"Conversely, men should accept the fact that the women they meet may be more intelligent than they are."

Yip also urged employers to offer flexible work hours and five-day weeks and to stop making overtime work the norm rather than the exception.

Employers can also help to cultivate a more family-conducive culture in the workplace by allowing employees to bring their spouses and partners to company activities.

Yip also hoped there would be more job flexibility in Hong Kong such as half-day work to allow for more family time.

"Establishing a proper family environment depends not only on the individual or the government but also the society," Yip stressed.

Hong Kong University Family Institute director Lee Wai-yung said one reason why many people chose to remain single was because of career ambitions.

She said the family model was also changing and there was a growing belief that women could have children without having to get married.