Taiwan’s childcare and education subsidies are too small to boost the nation’s falling birthrate, academics said at a policy forum in Taipei on Friday.
The forum, titled “Taiwan’s negative population growth: Challenges and policy responses,” was organized by the National Policy Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Although childcare reform and the establishment of a dedicated policy center has increased the nation’s birthrate from a low of 0.9 children per family in 2010 to about 1.1 in the past few years, the nation still reported negative population growth for the first time last year, former KMT lawmaker Arthur Chen (陳宜民) said.
National Taiwan University (NTU) associate professor of economics Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆) said that people give up on having children out of a lack of desire or means, and government policies should target the latter.
“Taiwan’s subsidies for childcare are miniscule. No couple is going to have children because they have a few extra thousand [New Taiwan] dollars per month,” he said.
The government should consider more decisive policies, such as full subsidies for raising children younger than six and education subsidies for students aged 15 and younger, he said.
These were policies touted by Hon Hai Precision Industry founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) and former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Hsin said, adding that “resources must be spent to solve problems.”
Population decline would reduce the labor pool and make it more difficult for the government to raise revenue, especially when an aging population drives up welfare spending, he said.
“The nation has a severe labor shortage and about 1 million citizens are employed abroad, which means they are likely to raise families outside of the country,” he said. “The government needs to take stronger action to boost the birthrate.”
Former minister without portfolio James Hsueh (薛承泰), who is a sociology professor at NTU, said that economic factors are partly to blame.
That young people work long hours and have little savings would make them less inclined or able to have children, he said.
The higher number of births recorded this month and last month suggest that relaxation during the holidays could be linked to the birthrate, he said.
While economic factors such as housing prices and quality of living play important roles, they alone are not sufficient to encourage people to have children, Hsueh said, adding that the nation must accept societal and lifestyle changes to increase the birthrate.
“The leader of the nation has to convey an attitude that supports raising children,” he said.
Taiwan has 3.2 million people aged 25 to 34, and only 800,000 of them are married, he said.
“Society needs to set a trend for families and marriages,” he added.
RULES TIGHTENED: Passengers arriving from Sydney and Los Angeles tested positive for COVID-19, while passengers arriving from Seattle all tested negative Seventeen of the 217 passengers who arrived on long-haul at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday morning tested positive for COVID-19, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said, adding that the positivity rate was higher than expected. Yesterday was the first day that the government enforced stricter health guidelines for the testing of passengers arriving on long-haul flights. They must undergo a polymerase chain reaction test immediately after arriving at the nation’s international airports. Those who test positive are sent directly to hospitals to avoid spreading the virus to people working in and around the airports and at quarantine hotels. Victor Wang (王必勝),
‘NEW YEAR GIFT’: While the MAC called the song propaganda, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that it addressed the homesickness of ‘Taiwanese compatriots’ A pro-unification pop song aired on Chinese television earlier this month would only further sour Taiwanese sentiment toward China, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Wednesday. The music video for We Sing the Same Song (我們同唱一首歌), which aired on China Central Television, features Chinese artists performing alongside Taiwanese singers Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Chen Li-nong (陳立農). The lyrics were reportedly written by Taiwanese lyricist Vincent Fang (方文山), known for his collaborations with Jay Chou (周杰倫), to music composed by a Chinese musician. Sung in Chinese and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), the song is about three Taiwanese siblings who
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is seeking to join an Indo-Pacific economic framework being planned by the US, a senior official said. The government is paying close attention to the regional economic pact being touted by US President Joe Biden, although too few details have emerged from Washington for Taipei to make specific plans, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The US is expected to launch the Indo-Pacific economic framework next month after negotiations with Australia, India and Japan, the official said. The economic initiative is to tackle trade facilitation, standards for the digital economy and technology, supply-chain resiliency and
‘CHAOS’: Victor Wang, the CECC’s on-site commander at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, said testing of arrivals has sped up in time to meet holiday demand For now, people are not banned from eating and drinking on trains, despite the rise in locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday. “On Sunday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced that the nation would remain on a level 2 COVID-19 alert until at least Jan. 24. So we will follow the center’s disease prevention guidelines for passengers on public transport systems,” Wang said. However, bus and train depots have been asked to disinfect facilities more frequently, he said. The center’s new
RSS