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Population hits 23 million

While politicians often like to use the term “the will of Taiwan’s 23 million people” in their speeches, the nation’s 23 millionth person was not born until last Thursday.

The baby boy, identified as Wu Cheng-en (吳承恩), was born on July 17 and his birth was registered on Wednesday at 1:50:56pm, making him the country’s 23 millionth citizen, a statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said on Thursday. The naming of the 23 millionth citizen is based on birth registrations at the country’s 371 household registration offices, the MOI said.

The infant is his parents’ third child. Wu’s father Wu Chia-chun (吳嘉均) said he holds high expectation for his baby son’s future.

Coincidentally, Wu and the nation’s 20 millionth person, Shen Yen-chen (沈燕禎), who was born in 1989, are both natives of Taoyuan County’s Pingjhen City (平鎮市).

Liu Pao-min (劉保民), a household registration administrator, said that they have been looking out for the birth of the nation’s 23 millionth person for some time.

Nationwide household registration databases showed that Taiwan was only 425 babies away from the 23 millionth baby by the end of the day on Tuesday, Liu said, adding that they then predicted that the 23 millionth baby would be born on Wednesday.

The calculation was based on a birth time database provided by 371 household registration offices across the country.

A computerized calculation was completed by monitoring the number of newborns and subtracting the number of deaths everyday.

The MOI confirmed by the end of the day on Wednesday that Wu is the nation’s 23 millionth baby, and Minister Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) will present a certificate and a congratulatory gold medal to the newborn in a public ceremony on a selected date to welcome his distinction, the MOI statement said.

MOI statistics show that the nation’s population hit the 20 million mark in April 1989. Because of the ever-declining birth rate, the population growth has been very slow in recent years, the officials said, adding that between 1989 and 1999, the population increased by about 1 million every five years, with the total number reaching 22 million in June 1999. The 23 millionth citizen was not born until nine years later.

In the 1950s, each Taiwanese woman gave birth to an average of six or more children, prompting the government to promote a policy of family planning in the 1960s and 1970s to alleviate population growth.

The trend, however, has reversed itself since 1984, when the fertility rate — the average number of children born to each woman — fell below 2.1. The fertility rate dropped even further to 1.1 last year, ranking Taiwan among the countries with ultra-low birth rates.

Tunghai University social work professor Tseng Hua-yuan (曾華源) voiced concerns, saying that the government should not only pay attention to the population number, but also to the marriage rate and the birth rate, as they will be the key factors in demographic changes in the future.
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