We hear it all the time: the nation’s low fertility rate is a “national security issue,” per the words of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). If this goes on, forecasts show that Taiwan will be a super-aged society by 2026, which will be disastrous for the economy and society.
Meanwhile, the government is rolling out all sorts of programs to incentivize marriage and childbirth, but few seem to be effective. If it’s not about money and resources, another argument goes, blame today’s youth, who are selfish for pursuing self actualization and individual fulfillment instead of committing to carrying out their generational responsibilities.
In response, the government often places the responsibility solely on the people of child-bearing age, with a “just do your bit and procreate” attitude and increasing births as the one and only solution to the problem.
But Stuart Gietel-Basten, an associate professor of social science and public policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, argues in The ‘Population Problem’ in Pacific Asia that the above is too much of a one-dimensional, simplified way of seeing and addressing the problem. The “population problem” is in quotes because part of his argument is that the region’s alarmingly low fertility rate is not the problem itself, but a symptom of a larger problem within society and its institutions. That government efforts have been concentrated on treating a symptom, rather than the upstream root causes, is why they have not been working.
In short, despite the blame game, survey results show that few “aspire to be single and childless, yet a high proportion are,” Gietel-Basten writes. The desire is still there, but society has evolved in a way where the average person cannot achieve their familial ideals anymore. It’s more of a case of “thwarted dreams” and “frustrated aspirations” instead of a “generation of egoists ruthlessly pursuing their higher order Maslowian needs at the expense of having kids.”
And it is the establishment’s insistence — whether it be the government or companies or keepers of traditional morals — on maintaining the bigger picture that is the problem. Gietel-Basten quotes several times Dutch demographer Nico van Nimwegen in the book: “States get the fertility rates that they deserve.” People don’t strike because they’re selfish, as the author aptly-puts it. They strike because the system is unfair.
TIMELY BOOK
This is a timely and highly-relevant book as the nation struggles between traditional beliefs, national prosperity and individual rights and fulfillment. People want meaningful lives outside of work, but companies continue to squeeze all they can out of their employees. Women still face discrimination at work if they get pregnant, despite legal protection. Gender roles are rapidly changing, but women often are still expected to do most of the work in childcare.
Readers living in the countries studied in the book will surely identify with many of the points brought up.
For example, part of Taiwan’s exorbitant child-rearing costs that deter people from childbirth come from the growing need for cram schools and extra-curricular education. But shouldn’t that point to a failure in the nation’s public education system instead? Why has education become so relentlessly competitive that parents feel compelled to sacrifice their finances as well as the child’s well-being? There are many factors to examine instead of solely blaming people for avoiding responsibility.
The list goes on, but as Gietel-Basten notes, the world doesn’t need another book to complain about the current state of affairs. By looking at the Asia-Pacific countries and territories that suffer from dropping fertility rates — China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Japan — the author looks at the issue from an exhaustive and comprehensive multidimensional perspective that refrains from seeing low fertility and aging societies as problems that simply need to be “fixed.” As the author states in the introduction, the book does not seek to slow aging or increase fertility, but to “suggest policies about policies which might make societies better for the people who live in them.”
Some of the statistical analyses can get quite dry and difficult to read for the layperson. Even though Gietel-Basten at one point asks the reader not familiar with demographic methods to “bear with me and not skip this chapter,” promising not to employ any “algebra, needless abbreviations, or methodological jargon,” it’s still quite a bit to digest. There are still many demographic terms that the untrained person will have to memorize on the spot to make sense of the ensuing pages, such as “tempo effect” and “cohort fertility rate.”
But in an academic book like this with a unconventional argument, the author needs to be extremely thorough with both quantitative and qualitative data to, layer by layer, back up his claims. For those truly interested in this imminent and complex problem, it is still worth wading through or just skimming the difficult parts to reach the conclusions.
In any event, the book essentially serves as an extended argument for an overhaul of the current system and the idea that fertility goals should not be state mandated but individual rights-based. Gietel-Basten goes as far as to argue that not even aging is necessarily bad, it’s just that the current societal institutions of these countries cannot cope with an aging society.
But while his ideals make a lot of sense, how realistic is that goal, especially in this part of the world? What Gietel-Basten looks at is a complete teardown of the system, from the labor market to public education to social insurance to gender roles and how they relate to the individual, employers and the government. It’s unlikely that it will happen any time soon in Taiwan.
On the other hand, the fact that such a radical reconfiguring may be needed to solve the fertility issue clearly shows that some kind of more drastic change is needed than what governments are currently doing. The book’s conclusion is an ideal scenario that may take decades to achieve, but it’s clear that if the nation doesn’t do something different soon, the future will be quite grim.
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