Hong Kong has become the world’s most unequal society in terms of wealth distribution as the core drivers of income inequality in the city have shifted from wage disparities to capital concentration, reducing social mobility. Yang Li, Researcher at the Germany-based ZEW-Leibniz Center for European Economic Research, presented the findings of a study which analyzed the evolution of income and wealth inequality in the city between 1981 and 2021. Yang said Hong Kong’s wealth disparities were no longer fueled by differences in wages, but rather by capital asset ownership – which generates investment returns that favor a small segment of the population. The share of capital in Hong Kong’s total income surged following the Asian financial crisis – from around 35% in 2000 to 55% in 2019, significantly outpacing other high-income economies, where the capital share typically hovered between 20% and 30%.
“The wealthy become unseen and invest in things that you do not know about, and the amounts are actually much, much larger than labor income,” Yang said. “Only a small group of people benefit from the rise of capital’s share in income, because you can only invest when you have money.” By 2018, the richest 0.001% of the population controlled at least 10.3% of the city’s total private wealth, at a conservative estimate. This share outpaced that of the United States, at 4.3%, and Russia, a nation known for oligarchic asset control, which stood at 9.8%.
Consequently, upward social mobility has stalled. The study found that the percentage of children out-earning their parents was deteriorating at a sharper and faster rate than in peer developed economies. Yang attributed the extreme inequality partly to Hong Kong’s weak wealth redistribution system. The city’s top personal income tax rate is 17% – far below the 30% to 45% levied in the U.S., Britain and mainland China. Hong Kong also maintains lower corporate and capital gains taxes compared with other economies, and abolished inheritance tax, a key mechanism for taxing intergenerational wealth, in 2006.
Yang also noted that despite Hong Kong being a financial center with a relatively high GDP per capita – at USD56,893 in 2025 – it had a lower minimum wage and extremely cramped living space per capita compared with developed economies in the West. Meanwhile, the birth rate in Hong Kong dropped to a record low in 2025. The city has also fallen to its lowest-ever position in the World Happiness Report, sliding down the index for the sixth consecutive year to 90th out of 147 territories. “For a society where people cannot afford to have a baby or a decent place to live, the question for Hong Kong is not whether it can afford to change, but the question is whether it can afford not to change,” Yang said, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
According to a study by Altrata, Hong Kong’s ultra-wealthy population jumped by 26.4% to nearly 18,300 in 2025 – roughly one super-rich individual for every 412 residents. An ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individual is defined as having net assets exceeding USD30 million. New York-headquartered Altrata revealed its findings in the 14th edition of its World Ultra Wealth Report. In the city-based ranking of UHNW cohorts by absolute size, Hong Kong came in second behind New York, which had 23,785 residents meeting the standard, up 16.9% from 2024. Los Angeles ranked third with 12,995. China’s UHNW population rose 10%, “slightly underperforming” global peers, Altrata said.
