Nearly 70 percent of respondents in an online survey would support unmarried couples and single women having children, provided that support systems are improved, the Childcare Policy Alliance said today.
As Taiwan’s marriage rate and birthrate continue to decline, Taiwan should follow in the footsteps of other aging societies, such as South Korea and Singapore, and begin shifting views on unmarried couples having children, it said.
The alliance released the survey findings today at a news conference ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday.
Photo: CNA
The online questionnaire asked 1,305 respondents, 88.5 percent of whom were women, their attitudes toward unmarried and single women having children.
The survey found that in the absence of protections, nearly 71 percent of respondents opposed non-marital childbearing and 61 percent opposed single parenthood.
However, nearly 70 percent of respondents supported non-marital or single-parent households if measures such as public childcare, anti-discrimination protections and requirements that both parents share child-rearing responsibilities were put in place.
Taiwan is not as conservative as it might seem, and opposition does not stem from moral judgement, but from practical concerns that single parents might lack resources, alliance spokesman Wang Chao-ching (王兆慶) said.
Taiwan’s fertility rate is one of the world’s lowest alongside Singapore.
Singapore’s birthrate recently fell to just 0.87, with Singaporean officials saying that subsidy policies are no longer effective, and cultural shifts regarding marriage and childbearing are instead needed to boost fertility, Wang said
South Korean officials have also said that more unmarried couples are now having children, he added.
In Europe, between 40 and 60 percent of children are born to unmarried parents and fertility rates remain at about 1.5 to 1.6, he said.
Meanwhile, in Taiwan and South Korea where a culture of “marriage before children” prevails, birthrates have plummeted, he added.
Many Taiwanese women want children but not marriage, said Lin Lu-hung (林綠紅), head of Taiwan Women's Link.
Some local governments subsidize egg freezing, though regulations require women to be married and hold an infertility diagnosis, she said.
Many eggs are therefore discarded as women wishing to use them are unmarried, she said.
The Legislative Yuan should prioritize passing amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) that would allow single women to access assisted reproductive technology, she said.
Financial difficulties for single mothers are often put down to personal morality or poor choices, when really they are caused by wider systemic issues, Awakening Foundation policy department director Lee Ying-hsueh (李盈學) said.
The government should follow recommendations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and provide sufficient public care resources and a legal environment that does not discriminate, she said.
Moreover, the government should allow single parents to receive the equivalent of two parents’ paid parental leave, up to 12 months in total, Alliance of Educare Trade Unions supervisor Chen Liang-yin (陳亮吟) said.
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