Taiwan ranks first in Asia and eighth worldwide in gender equality, due mainly to its higher female participation in politics, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The agency came up with the rankings using the criteria in the gender inequality index (GII) introduced by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2010.
The GII is a composite index that measures the disparity between female and male achievements in three areas: reproductive health, empowerment and the labor market.
It ranges from zero — which indicates that women and men fare equally — to 1 — which indicates that women fare as poorly as possible in all three areas.
Since Taiwan is not a member of the UN, it is not ranked in the GII.
However, using the index’s criteria, the DGBAS calculated Taiwan’s score in 2017 at 0.056, placing it eighth worldwide and first in Asia.
In the UNDP’s 2017 GII, Sweden ranked first among 160 nations with a score of 0.039, followed by Denmark with 0.040, and Switzerland and the Netherlands tied in third place at 0.044.
In terms of empowerment, Taiwan’s female participation in politics has been on the rise, the DGBAS said.
Taiwanese women held 38.1 percent of the legislative seats in 2017, up 16.9 percentage points from 2007, and the female-to-male ratio in the legislature was higher than that in other Asian countries, including Singapore, China, South Korea and Japan, the DGBAS said.
The labor force participation rate in Taiwan for women aged 15 and above was 50.9 percent in 2017, 16.2 percentage points lower than that for men, but the gender gap was smaller than that of Singapore, Japan and South Korea, the agency said.
Furthermore, women took 16.7 percent of the mayoral seats in the nation’s six special municipalities in last year’s local elections, the same as in the 2014 poll, it said.
As for the other 16 cities and counties, women held 37.5 percent of the mayoral and commissioner seats, an increase of 31.2 percentage points from 2014 and marking the first time the rate went past one-third since 1997, the DGBAS said.
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
CONCESSION: A Shin Kong official said that the firm was ‘willing to contribute’ to the nation, as the move would enable Nvidia Crop to build its headquarters in Taiwan Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday said it would relinquish land-use rights, or known as surface rights, for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), paving the way for Nvidia Corp to expand its office footprint in Taiwan. The insurer said it made the decision “in the interest of the nation’s greater good” and would not seek compensation from taxpayers for potential future losses, calling the move a gesture to resolve a months-long impasse among the insurer, the Taipei City Government and the US chip giant. “The decision was made on the condition that the Taipei City Government reimburses the related
FRESH LOOK: A committee would gather expert and public input on the themes and visual motifs that would appear on the notes, the central bank governor said The central bank has launched a comprehensive redesign of New Taiwan dollar banknotes to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures, improve accessibility and align the bills with global sustainability standards, Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. The overhaul would affect all five denominations — NT$100, NT$200, NT$500, NT$1,000 and NT$2,000 notes — but not coins, Yang said. It would be the first major update to the banknotes in 24 years, as the current series, introduced in 2001, has remained in circulation amid rapid advances in printing technology and security standards. “Updating the notes is essential to safeguard the integrity
RSS