Taiwan has more single men than single women, the latest statistics from the Ministry of the Interior showed, amid concerns voiced by a lawmaker that single Taiwanese women are facing competition for local husbands from foreign nationals.
The issue came to the fore after People First Party Legislator Chang Show-foong (張曉風) said on Thursday that “men are developing the strange habit of marrying foreigners instead of Taiwanese women.”
Chang even referred to unmarried women in the country as shengnu (剩女) — literarilly, “leftover women.”
However, the ministry’s statistics for last year showed that there were 2.7 million single men aged 20-49, against 2.17 million single women in the same age group.
In the 35-49 age bracket, the number of unmarried men was 572,074, while the figure for women was 445,485, the statistics showed.
In 2010, 50.9 percent of women aged between 20 and 49 were married, compared with 44.3 percent of men in the same age group, the ministry’s figures showed.
The influence of Western and global values has changed modern Taiwanese’ perspective on marriage and is one of the main reasons behind the surplus of single men in the country, Department of Household Registration Director Hsieh Ai-ling (謝愛齡) said.
Moreover, single men these days tend to value their personal freedom and desires more, she said.
Another factor is that the busy lifestyle of young people today makes it difficult for them to meet new friends, she added.
As of last month, the number of foreign spouses in Taiwan was 461,121, with most of them being women, according to the ministry’s statistics.
Of the 309,967 spouses from China, about 93 percent were women, the figures showed.
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