The Ministry of the Interior on Friday reported that Taiwan’s population last year decreased for the first time on record, with the number of deaths exceeding births by 7,907. Coupled with concerns about slowing growth in the nation’s labor force and productivity, and the effects of an aging society, this is causing an escalation of Taiwan’s demographic crisis. The government must seriously address the issue with effective measures, as it is a matter of national security.
Taiwan’s population shrank to 23.56 million as of the end of last year, a decline of 41,885, or 0.18 percent, from 2019, the lowest population number since 2016, data compiled by the ministry’s Department of Household Registration showed.
There were 165,249 births last year, down 7.04 percent from 2019. That represented a significant drop of 27.99 percent from the most recent high of 229,481 in 2012, making it the lowest on record.
Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i (林萬億), a former professor of social work at National Taiwan University, said in an interview with the Central News Agency that the government has long predicted that population statistics for this year and last year would show negative growth, and that the drop in the birthrate was foreseeable.
However, it is surprising that the decline would escalate so fast, indicating a serious issue and severe challenge for the government, he said.
Births in Taiwan have over the past 10 years shown a gradual downward trend. The total fertility rate — the number of children born per woman — was estimated to stay at about one last year, according to National Development Council projections. The figure is one of the lowest in the world, and the council aims to increase it to 1.4 by 2030. However, it is unclear how it would achieve that.
For most people in Taiwan, raising children is too expensive, and many young people do not want to have children, even after marriage. A survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare found that the average monthly expenditure for a preschool child in 2018 accounted for nearly 24 percent of a family’s spending. To reduce the financial burden on parents, the government has since 2019 increased child-rearing subsidies, preschool care services and other incentives.
In that year, it started providing a childcare allowance of NT$2,500 per month for families for each of their first two children up to the age of four, and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last year promised to increase the allowance to NT$5,000, as well as to extend the coverage to children of up to six years old. However, the subsidy is simply a drop in the ocean for those who raise children in Taiwan, where housing prices are high and wage increases do not keep up with price hikes, requiring many to take side jobs in addition to their full-time employment.
Nonetheless, much can be done to address the demographic problem, and much more should be done to fundamentally change Taiwan’s social environment and economic structure to encourage people to have children.
The government has pledged greater support for those raising children, but its efforts require the implementation of policies not only by the ministries of health and welfare, the interior, and labor, but also the ministries of finance and economic affairs. In a wider perspective, it should be high on the government’s agenda to implement policies that are comprehensive enough, and encourage people to marry and allow them to feel comfortable about raising children.
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