From this year, there are to be more women in Taiwan than men. The ratio of men to women is 99.99-100, the first time this has happened in 100 years.
As with many other stable, advanced societies, social trends are gradually seeing changes in gender ratios. For example, in 2001, the ratio in Italy was 0.937 males for every female, 0.939 in France, 0.948 in Japan and 0.951 in Austria.
The crucial factor behind the higher proportion of men in Taiwan in the past was the several million military personnel the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) brought to Taiwan when it fled China after losing the Civil War in 1949. Very few people are still alive from that era.
In addition, there have been proportionately more men among the wave of people studying overseas or emigrating and of those leaving Taiwan as part of the relocation of industry. Meanwhile, spouses from China or other countries coming to live in Taiwan have predominantly been female.
It is predicted that in less than half a century, the gender ratio in Taiwan will fall to 0.93, levels on a par with the current ratios in Italy and France. The ratio in Taipei is already 0.924. Women tend to gravitate to the capital, as they do in economically advanced countries, because of the developed infrastructure and the better job opportunities, mainly in the service sector.
By comparison, China has 1.052 males to each female.
The phenomenon of a higher proportion of females to males is a demographic trend that has repercussions for medical treatment, healthcare, society and politics.
How are people in the modern world adapting to this on an individual and a collective level? What does it mean for policy formation? How is it changing the way circumstances and happiness are defined? What does it mean for how people live and how they look at the world?
The modern woman no longer spends as much time being pregnant. The current health insurance only covers delivery of the baby and does not cover the various contraceptive measures, which does not make sense.
Even when a woman is pregnant, she may want to go through a whole raft of tests and checks, such as a level two ultrasound scan, a Down syndrome check and amniotic fluid tests, for which she must pay out of her own pocket.
The way national health insurance works at the moment, more funds are directed toward targeted cancer therapies for terminal patients than they are towards the creation of new lives.
A second phenomenon is the gradual annual increase in domestic violence. In 2012, there were more than 110,000 reported cases of domestic violence, an increase of more than 10,000 cases compared with the previous year, representing a growth rate of 10.4 percent. Of this increase, the majority — more than 5,000 cases — involved children, followed by more than 4,000 cases involving violence against spouses, former spouses or cohabiting partners.
Seventy-one percent of the people abused in reports of domestic abuse were female, and men — who were the ones meting out the abuse in 77 percent of the cases — were 4.3 times as likely to be the offenders as women were.
However, it is worth noting that the gender role in domestic violence cases is gradually closing. Ten years ago, females were 4.7 times more likely to be victims of domestic abuse, but this figure fell to 2.5 for 2012.
Perhaps one simplistic way of visualizing this is with a scenario in which there are problems within the family or between a couple: Although men are generally 15 percent stronger than women, women tend to live longer. When the man reaches old age and becomes physically weaker, very possibly looked after by a hired caregiver, it is time for his other half, harboring a grudge accumulated over the years, to get recompense.
Leo Tolstoy opened his novel Anna Karenina with “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
If the man in the partnership is short-sighted, he had better make sure he stays in shape or there is no telling what strife awaits him in his dotage.
Economic independence for women is a welcome phenomenon in the post-World War II world.
In Taiwan, as in the West, women now make up more than half of the workforce. They are making inroads into the financial and service sectors, and there are increasingly many female doctors, a field in which men have traditionally been dominant. In Taiwan, 15 percent of registered doctors are women, compared with 30 percent in the US and soon-to-be more than 50 percent in the UK. The numbers for the proportion of women currently in medical training are more promising, being more than 30 percent, 50 percent and 65 percent respectively for those same countries.
In the future, women will be dominant in the medical profession. However, due to biological and cultural factors, women doctors are in practice 20 percent less than their male counterparts and there are proportionately fewer female doctors in remote areas.
This, in a country such as Taiwan where there is a shortage of doctors, does not bode well for the future.
Chiang Sheng is an attending physician in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mackay Memorial Hospital.
Translated by Paul Cooper
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said on Monday that it would be announcing its mayoral nominees for New Taipei City, Yilan County and Chiayi City on March 11, after which it would begin talks with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to field joint opposition candidates. The KMT would likely support Deputy Taipei Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) as its candidate for New Taipei City. The TPP is fielding its chairman, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), for New Taipei City mayor, after Huang had officially announced his candidacy in December last year. Speaking in a radio program, Huang was asked whether he would join Lee’s
RSS