A falling birth rate and aging population are combining to wage a silent revolution that is changing the country’s basic social structures, a Tunghai University sociology professor said yesterday.
Kao Cheng-shu (高承恕) said that while these trends will decide the nation’s future political, economic and social development, neither the government nor the private sector seem aware of the changes or the looming threat.
A population change assessment conducted by the Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) last year showed the percentage of the total population aged 65 and over would gradually increase from 10.4 percent last year to 14.7 percent by 2018 and to 37.5 percent in 2056.
The population aging index stood at 61.4 last year, which means the ratio of people aged 14 and under to people aged 65 and over was 1.6 to 1, the council said. It said the index would rise to 100 in 2016 and to 369.7 in 2056.
The implication is that in 2056, seniors will outnumber young people under the age of 14 by a ratio of 3.7 to 1, the council said.
“Population structure change is a silent revolution that occurs without making a sound, but it is so powerful that it will change the basic social structure,” Kao said.
The only way to deal with the economic challenge posed by this change is to upgrade and refine the industrial sector, he said.
The government’s move to increase the number of universities rather than push to upgrade the quality of schools has been ill-advised, Kao said. In a society with a dropping birth rate, “no psychological impact is greater than the one triggered by closing a university,” he said.
Chuang Chi-ming (莊淇銘), an educational management professor at National Taipei University of Education, said that the graying of the population signifies the arrival of a “lifetime working” era: “In the past we always said ‘live and learn.’ That should be changed to ‘learn and live,’ which not only means that people will work their entire life but also have to remain competitive.”
RSS