Taiwan is an aging society and elderly people are expected to account for 20 percent of the total population within 10 years, according to the National Development Council (NDC).
The council cited a population report as saying that the number of people in the 65-or-older age group is expected to increase from about 4.64 million currently to 6.42 million by 2025, which would mean one out of every five people in Taiwan would be in the group.
The one-to-five ratio means Taiwan would be a “hyper-aged” society, the council said.
The rapid growth in population of elderly people means that within 10 years, every three people on a payroll would be responsible for the financial support of one retiree, the report said.
The ratio is expected to increase by 2040, when the number of people in the 65-or-older agegroup would on average see two working people supporting one retiree, the report said, adding that the fall in the number of working people would be exacerbated by the declining birth rate.
A separate report jointly released by the council and the Ministry of Health and Welfare indicates that because of the aging society, elderly people who are disabled and have lost ability to take care of themselves account for 20 percent of the aged population, or about 572,000 people, a number that is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2031.
Cathay Life Insurance Co, one of the nation’s largest life insurers, said that as the number of disabled elderly people is expected to grow, people should pay close attention to long-term care services and buy appropriate insurance policies to reduce the financial burden when they get older.
In addition to rising demand for long-term care, market analysts said wealth management is important.
The public will have to start managing their wealth as early as possible to keep sufficient funds on hand for a comfortable retirement, said Sheng Chi-ying (盛季瑩), a manager of Taishin International Bank’s wealth management division.
According to an estimate by CTCB Bank, for a person who wants to retire at age 60, they will have to have saved no less than NT$11 million (US$335,345).
They will need about NT$40,000 in disposable funds to meet demand based on statistics that show people in Taiwan have an average of 23 years of life after retirement, the bank said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
‘GROWING UP TOGETHER’: Jensen Huang celebrated the nation’s role in the formation of the tech firm at a Silicon Valley gathering, saying ‘Taiwan saved Nvidia’ Taiwan is in the center of the new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) told a gathering with Taiwanese on Thursday in Silicon Valley’s largest city, San Jose. Tainan-born Huang said it must be celebrated that “Taiwan is right in the middle” of a new industrial revolution in which “something new is being made, and made in a new way.” Huang recalled the manufacturing process of the RIVA 128 graphics processing unit, Nvidia’s first commercial success, describing it as the “most complicated chip at the time.” As Nvidia did not have the budget, he wrote a letter to Taiwan