The number of households with elderly members has increased by 1.15 million over the past decade, creating a growing scene of aging families across the nation, Ministry of the Interior data showed.
The latest data from the ministry’s Real Estate Information platform showed that as of September, the number of registered households nationwide exceeded 9.83 million, of which more than 3.42 million included at least one elderly resident or 34.79 percent.
The figure represented an increase of about 1.15 million households with elderly residents, compared with about 2.27 million such households, or 26.61 percent, in September 2016 — an increase of more than 8 percentage points over the past decade.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Post-World War II baby boomers are gradually entering the silver-haired generation, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said.
Common scenarios include adult children moving out to start their own families, parents requiring care, or living with their children, he said.
As the population ages, the elderly dependency ratio is rising, he added.
The elderly dependency ratio stood at about 27.76 percent last year, up from 17.96 percent in 2016 — an increase of 9.8 percentage points over 10 years, data showed.
The youth dependency ratio fell to about 16.96 percent last year from 18.17 percent in 2016 — a decline of 1.21 percentage points, they showed.
As more young people delay, or forgo marriage or having children, and increasingly live with their parents, households with one or more elderly members are becoming more common than those with children, real-estate industry analysts said.
The average number of people per registered household has remained below three for three consecutive quarters, ministry data showed.
The trend reflects not only the decline of extended families, but also a drop in the number of households headed by married couples with children, property market analysts said.
Taiwan’s low birthrate has driven household structures to shift from multigenerational families to single-generation households, housing researcher Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
There is a growing number of childless households, he added, calling it a national security crisis.
Meanwhile, as separate household registrations become more common, the total number of registered households is expected to continue increasing even as the population enters negative growth, likely surpassing 10 million, he said.
Taiwan’s household size is expected to continue declining and gradually approach two people per household, he said, adding that homes would become smaller, a trend he said would be difficult to reverse.
The underlying causes extend beyond high housing prices to include complex changes in family values, and attitudes toward marriage and childbearing, making the issue unlikely to be resolved through any single policy measure, he said.
Family structures have been rapidly evolving alongside urbanization and broader social trends, driving a continued decline in the average household size, Tseng said.
The population is divided into three age groups: children younger than 14, working-age people from 15 to 64 years old, and people aged 65 or above, Colliers International Taiwan director Huang Shu-wei (黃舒衛) said.
In 2000, children accounted for 21 percent of the population, while elderly people made up 9 percent, he said.
However, by 2016, the share of elderly people had risen to 14 percent, overtaking the proportion of children at 13 percent, he said.
By last year, the elderly accounted for 20 percent of the population, meaning one in every five people was aged 65 or older, while the share of children fell to just 12 percent, he added.
Over the years, the number of children has dropped from 4.7 million to 2.74 million — a decline of 42 percent, while the elderly population has surged from 1.92 million to 4.49 million — an increase of 134 percent, Huang said.
Meanwhile, the working-age population has also been shrinking year by year since 2015, with insufficient new entrants to bolster the workforce, and even the core working-age group beginning to shrink, he said.
A super-aged society is exerting gradual, but profound effects on labor supply, family caregiving, intergenerational equity, insurance system stability and asset distribution, he said, adding that these pressures would eventually converge on housing-related issues.
As Taiwan moves toward a super-aged society, older homes can no longer rely solely on redevelopment for renewal, he said.
The slow pace of urban renewal and dangerous building reconstruction projects cannot meet the demands of societal changes, he said.
Addressing elderly residents’ safety and accessibility issues through renovation, rehabilitation and maintenance would become a key focus in the market, Huang said.
The urgency of introducing artificial intelligence and smart building technologies is likely to grow under mounting labor shortages, potentially becoming an even more critical housing issue than green buildings or renewable energy in the future, he added.
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