The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced recently that next year it will introduce a policy involving subsidizing assisted reproduction for infertile couples to increase Taiwan’s fertility rate.
Giving subsidies to economically disadvantaged, infertile couples to help them have children is a great idea. However, the main reason behind the declining birth rate is not infertility, but rather that potential parents cannot afford to raise children.
While assisted reproductive technology has become increasingly advanced in Taiwan over the past decade, the average live birth rate per embryo transfer cycle has remained at a mere 27 percent, which means that on average, an infertile couple will have to go through three or four rounds of therapy before the process is successful.
Therefore, the government has drawn up a three-year budget of NT$940 million (US$31.4 million) for artificial reproduction subsidies, of which almost NT$670 million will be spent on failed therapies, which is hardly cost-effective.
Furthermore, the ministry has forecast that 4,000 children will be born three years after the policy is implemented and that for each child born, an average of NT$235,000 will have been paid out in subsidies.
Given the government’s substantial debts and that such debt is passed on from one generation to the next, it seems somewhat inappropriate and unreasonable of the government to spend tax revenue in this way.
The ministry believes that the government’s seven major policies aimed at tackling the declining birth rate have been effective enough to create a positive environment in which people can rear children and all that is required now is for people to start having babies.
Yet the current social welfare system only partially subsidizes child care and medical care, while the government has no clear plans for subsidizing the daily necessities for raising children that need to be covered by parents, such as clothing, food and living expenses.
Thus, this is a policy that looks good on paper, but that provides no real benefits. The result will be that those who cannot afford to have children are less likely to apply for the subsidies, while those who are better off and can afford to raise children will be the only ones with the means to apply each year, which will cause a negative distribution of government funding.
In addition, because of the economic incentives, doctors might be inclined to encourage younger couples to try artificial reproduction — citing the higher success rates in younger couples — discouraging the natural process of pregnancy in favor of medical procedures, which expose both mother and child to the risks involved in assisted reproduction.
Policies aimed at assisting the economically disadvantaged have always been of high importance, but the government’s ideas about the nature of artificial reproduction and child rearing are impractical.
Without carrying out a complete cost-effectiveness analysis or a social impact assessment of these policies and putting them into practice before the next presidential election, the only thing to be certain of is that within the next three years, 74 medical centers for assisted reproduction will gladly take both the NT$940 million that the government will give them and all the business opportunities this might create.
Huang Sue-ying and Tsai Wan-fen are president and secretary-general respectively of Taiwan Women’s Link.
Translated by Drew Cameron
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS