Amid efforts to encourage families to have more babies, the Ministry of the Interior yesterday announced an expansion to the program that offers married couples NT$3,000 (US$94) per month to subsidize the cost of hiring babysitters for children under the age of two.
The ministry recently introduced several programs to encourage married couples to have more babies. Statistics showed that while slight increases have been seen in birthrates for first-time parents, families are more reluctant to have additional children.
In 2005, 11.4 percent of babies born were the third child in the family. By last year, the proportion had dropped to 1.52 percent.
The ministry offers married couples with a combined yearly salary of less than NT$1.5 million subsidies of NT$3,000 per month per child to send their children aged under two to community babysitting services.
The ministry said that starting next year, the program would expand to include married couples of all income levels with a third child.
The ministry said that it has estimated it will cost NT$56 million per year to fund the program.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡), who recently gave birth, praised the ministry’s plan.
Chang described the policy as “positive,” saying the offer would show people the government’s determination to address the falling birthrate.
The proposal drew mixed reactions from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, however, who said the government should look into providing more financial subsidies starting from the first child.
“This is an unrealistic empty check,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said in the legislature. “The [government] can’t even properly convince mothers to have their first or second baby, much less their third.”
Information compiled from government databases by the DPP caucus shows fewer than one in 12 mothers wants a third child.
Therefore, the proposal would have limited effect and most likely not give the birthrate a noticeable boost, opposition lawmakers said.
Rather, the ministry should study ways of encouraging more families to have at least one or two children, DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said.
The government should hand out large subsidies starting from the first child, and become even more generous with the second, she said.
“This [falling birthrate] is an issue we can no longer ignore,” she said. “It will have a direct impact on our national strength, labor and our [economy]. It’s an extremely serious matter.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS