Cats or dogs? In East Asia, more people are becoming feline fans

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) — It’s an age-old question: are you a cat person or a dog person?

In East Asia, it seems more and more people these days are Team Cat.

Take Taiwan, the self-ruled island where pet cats outnumbered dogs for the first time in 2025, according to a government survey. The pet cat population has surged rapidly, from 1.3 million in 2023 to 1.7 million last year – an increase of nearly 33%.

The same thing happened in mainland China in 2021. Japan was perhaps the earliest originator of this trend, with cats overtaking dogs a decade ago. Even in places where dogs are still more common, like South Korea or Hong Kong, cats are growing in popularity.

All these places have certain factors in common: people living in small apartments in dense cities, often lonely, and working busy jobs that leave little time for a canine companion.

“Having a cat would be more convenient (in a city), because you have to frequently take dogs out for walks, you might not have that much time, and some people are afraid of dogs,” said Hong Kong resident Ellen Chung, speaking to CNN one afternoon at a cat café filled with visitors and frock-wearing cats.

And, she added, “I think cats are just cuter.”

If those factors sound familiar, it may be because they’ve also contributed to declining birth rates in every one of these places – despite governments’ best attempts to reverse the trend.

“People choose not to have kids now. So having a pet almost resembles having a child,” said Paul Wong, a clinical psychologist who works with therapy animals and associate professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

The combined challenges of city life “would probably make people feel like having cats rather than dogs,” he added.

Stressed, busy and lonely

Some of these places have a history of cat mania that helped fuel the current feline boom.

For instance, Japan is the home of Hello Kitty, the little cartoon cat created in 1974 that launched an $80 billion empire. It also has several “cat islands” with feral feline populations, that have become popular tourist destinations.

But cats have had a more difficult time in other places. For many years, people in South Korea associated them with ill fortune or evil spirits – partly why they were historically much less popular as pets than dogs.

That’s slowly changing, however. The number of pet cats in South Korea has risen sharply since the Covid-19 pandemic – perhaps because cats are easier to care for indoors, with outdoor activities limited by Covid restrictions for several years, according to a 2025 report by KB Financial Group.

Gong Su-hyun, a veterinarian at the Ballyeomaru cat adoption center in Hwaseong, a city in northwestern South Korea, told CNN she could “feel that the interest in cats is growing.” More people are coming in for cat adoptions and volunteering than before, she said.

The main difference in the last decade or so has been a mental shift, from thinking of animals as utilitarian to companion pets, said Wong at HKU. For instance, before dogs were primarily used for security or other purposes, while cats were used for pest control; now, they are used for “tackling loneliness,” he added.

Meanwhile, many places across East Asia have seen massive changes in demographic and social trends in recent decades. Across China, Japan and South Korea, young people left their countryside homes in droves to find work in major cities, often leaving behind emptying villages occupied by a shrinking number of elderly people.

But city life brings its own challenges. Many young East Asians are facing hyper-competitive job markets, stagnating wages, high living costs, and brutal work hours.

China’s excessive work culture became such a problem that it was condemned by the country’s top court in 2021. Similarly, there’s a specific phrase for “death by overwork” in Japan, where the government has imposed legal limits on overtime.

“These conditions make cats a more practical option, especially for the younger generation,” said Joe Ngai, assistant professor at Hong Kong Shue Yan University’s Department of Counselling and Psychology. “As cats adapt well to indoor environments, do not require daily walks, it offers a form of companionship that fits more easily within the constraints of urban life in Hong Kong.”

These pressures are among a number of reasons young Asians are increasingly choosing not to get married or have children. Japan’s population has shrunk for 16 consecutive years, while South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate. Similar trends are seen across the region.

But as the number of single-person households increases, so does loneliness. Some young people withdraw from the world entirely for prolonged periods of time, a phenomenon known as hikikomori. In the South Korean capital, authorities are spending nearly $327 million on a five-year plan to combat loneliness. And in China, an app named “Are You Dead” requiring users to check in daily went viral for tapping into a widespread sense of isolation.

In the absence of human company, children, or spouses – people turn to animals. They’re also opening their wallets, with Asia’s pet economy booming.

A 2024 research report by investment bank Goldman Sachs found pet food to be one of the fastest-growing consumer sectors in China, with the industry’s value expected to surge to $12 billion in 2030. And in South Korea, more pet strollers than baby strollers were sold for the first time in 2023, according to the country’s largest online marketplace.

That might not be welcome news for governments eager for more babies. But in lieu of children, a kitty companion might offer much-needed comfort to Asia’s struggling young people.

“If peoples’ well-being improves,” said Wong, “then maybe it’s still better than having a small population that’s a sad population.”

The-CNN-Wire
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