Taipei has the highest proportion of residents who have dependents, at more than half last year, data released by the Ministry of the Interior on Monday showed.
It is also where the heaviest financial burden is placed on the “sandwich generation” — those who need to support at least one child and at least one parent.
The “dependency ratio” climbed to more than 50 percent in Taipei for the first time last year, meaning that for every two working-age residents (aged 15 to 64) there is one family dependent, defined as younger than 14 or older than 65.
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Taipei Times
The nation’s aging index is the number of people aged 65 or older divided by the number of people aged 14 and younger, multiplied by 100.
Chiayi County had the highest score in the index last year at 252.45, followed by Keelung at 196.12, Kinmen County at 196.01, Nantou County at 195.74 and Pingtung County at 193.08.
Keelung posted the biggest increase, rising from 184.22 in 2021, while Kinmen recorded the second-biggest increase, followed by Nantou.
In the six special municipalities, Taipei has the highest aging index at 166.1, followed by Kaohsiung at 161.78, while Taoyuan had the lowest score at 101.89.
Taoyuan still trailed Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County, which scored 87.03 and 86.71 respectively. The two regions are the only places in Taiwan where the younger population is bigger than the elderly population.
Regarding families that support elderly parents, Taipei surpassed Chiayi County, with a dependency ratio of 31.44 percent, up from 29.76 percent in 2021. Chiayi County’s ratio was 31.12 percent.
Hsinchu City has the highest dependency ratio for young people at 23.38 percent, followed by Hsinchu County at 22.27 percent and Taoyuan at 19.54 percent.
The lowest financial burden placed on the “sandwich generation” was in Kinmen County and other outlying islands, as they have the most social welfare benefits, subsidies and incentives for residents, ministry officials said.
Many people who are registered as living on outlying islands, work and live on Taiwan’s main island, so their dependency ratio does not reflect the actual situation and cannot be used for comparison, officials said.
House ownership in Taiwan has increased, while there has also been a growth in single-person households, which made up 35 percent of all households nationwide. It is the highest ratio in the nation’s history.
There were 3.22 million single-person households last year, 1.91 million two-person households and 1.64 million three-person households, a record high for all three.
A decade ago, single, two and three-person households totaled 770,000, 340,000 and 150,000 respectively.
Households of four or more people totaled 2.65 million 10 years ago, but dropped to a record low 2.31 million last year, or 25.4 percent of the nation’s total.
The number of four-person households ranged from 1.3 million to 1.34 million throughout most of the past decade, but dropped below 1.3 million in 2020 and plunged to 1.26 million last year.
The average household has 2.56 people living in it, also a record low.
This indicates that the traditional three-generation nuclear family is fast disappearing, officials said, adding that people registered in households might not be related, but the trend shows that the family composition of Taiwan’s population is changing.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS