The National Audit Office’s annual report for last year showed that Taiwan’s birthrate remains stubbornly low. Although the report found that 96 percent of newborns were from married couples, it also showed that by the end of last year, 50 percent of people aged 20 to 44 were not married. The main reason for the low birthrate should therefore be attributed to the low marriage rate.
The continual decline of the marriage rate should be considered an important and persistent factor in the low birthrate. Once the birthrate has decreased to a certain point, it would be extremely difficult to reverse. Fewer children today, means fewer women to have children in the future.
The report showed that 5.46 million women were aged 15 to 49, but it also estimated that the number of women of reproductive age is likely to fall to 3.89 million by 2040. Within two decades, the number would fall by almost 30 percent. In this sense, even if the marriage rate and birthrate remain the same, the number of newborns would continue to drop.
When the fertility rate of a country falls to 1.5, it is a warning sign. Once that figure drops to 1.3, it is almost impossible for the birthrate to bounce back. This is why Western countries consider 1.3 as the “lowest-low” fertility rate. It is believed that as soon as the number falls lower than that, any policies aimed at raising the birthrate would be futile.
The only thing governments can do is to slow down pace of population decline as much as possible. In other words, 1.3 is a point of no return.
Taiwan’s fertility rate this year has been estimated to be the lowest in the world at 1.09.
The government has spent a great amount of money on enhancing the quality of childcare and providing subsidies to parents with newborns. From July 2018, the Executive Yuan has put these measures and policies into practice, but the fertility rate has continued to fall. The fertility rate decreased from 1.13 in 2017 to 0.98 in 2021.
The main purpose of the current policies is to care for newborns. It is not wrong that most of the resources are distributed to families with children, but as confirmed by the National Audit Office’s report, the government should pay more attention to the low marriage rate, which might play an important role in preventing the birthrate from falling further.
The government must encourage people to marry and give birth to children, and its policies should be designed with different aims for people at different stages in their lives. That way, Taiwan can reverse the low marriage and fertility rates step-by-step. For instance, the government should first solve the problem of housing, so that younger people can afford homes and be more willing to marry and start a family. After that, the policies aimed at raising the birthrate could be implemented in a more effective way.
Dino Wei works in the information technology industry.
Translated by Emma Liu
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