About 21 percent of married Taiwanese aged 35 to 54 — more than 1.06 million people — live with their parents, even though they are financially independent, according to the Ministry of the Interior’s latest statistics.
The ministry released the data for the first time as a reference tool for local governments, to help them develop housing policies that better meet the needs of their constituents.
The ministry said people in this category “have the potential to live independently,” because they are financially independent from their parents and able to make a living and support a family.
The percentage of married people living with their parents tended to be higher in rural areas than in urban areas, the ministry said.
In the six special municipalities, 16 to 22 percent of married people aged 35 to 54 lived with their parents, compared with 26 to 33 percent in rural areas in central and southern Taiwan.
Fewer married people in urban areas live with their parents, because they tend to value their independence more, the ministry said.
They also have to deal with smaller apartments that make it harder for extended families to live together, it added.
Many houses in rural parts of central and southern Taiwan are multistory townhouses that can accommodate more people, it said.
Such structures allow married couples to live with their parents, but still enjoy a degree of independence by having one floor of the house to themselves, the ministry said.
Among the nation’s 22 cities and counties, Kinmen (33.79 percent), Yunlin (33.34 percent) and Chiayi (32.74 percent) counties had the highest ratios of potentially independent married people living with their parents, the ministry said.
Keelung (15.82 percent), Hsinchu (15.96 percent) and New Taipei City (16.71 percent) had the lowest ratios, it said.
In Yunlin and Chiayi — where agriculture is the main source of income — people tend to stay to help cultivate their family’s land, the ministry said, adding that it is also easier for married people to live with their parents to take care of them.
Many Keelung natives tend to move to bigger neighboring cities to find work and start their own families, the ministry said.
New Taipei City attracts many people from other parts of the nation to work and start families, also leading to a lower proportion of married people living with their parents, as does Hsinchu, home to one of the nation’s biggest science parks, the ministry said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan