With Taiwan’s birthrate falling to an all-time low last year, the National Development Council (NDC) yesterday conceded that the government’s birthrate projections in a report published in 2024 were “too optimistic.”
“The previous estimates were too optimistic, resulting in a relatively large discrepancy with the actual figures,” NDC Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said during a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
A revised version of the council’s Population Projections for the Republic of China (Taiwan): 2024-2070 is due to be published in August, Yeh said.
Photo: CNA
“This time, the hypothetical scenarios and statistical model will be revised to assume the worst-case scenario for population conditions,” he said.
The Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday last week reported that the number of births fell to a record monthly low of 6,523 last month.
Births last year fell for the 10th straight year to a record low of 107,812, or about 18,000 lower than the council’s worst-case projections of 126,000.
In the 2024 population report, the council used the nation’s 2023 total fertility rate (TFR) of 0.87 as a basis to project three scenarios for future fertility — a high scenario of 1.3, a medium scenario of 1.0 and a low scenario of 0.8.
TFR refers to the average number of babies a woman will have during her lifetime. A 2.1 or higher rate is needed for a population to replace itself without migration.
Based on those varying scenarios, the council projected that Taiwan’s population would fall from a high of 23.6 million in 2019 to between 14.4 million and 15.8 million by 2070, or 61.4 percent to 67.7 percent of the 2024 population.
Taiwan’s crude birthrate last year stood at 4.62 per 1,000 people.
While the government has yet to announce the official TFR, Newsweek has estimated that is likely to be about 0.72, making Taiwan’s birthrate the lowest in the world.
The central government has had few solutions, as annual births have plummeted from more than 193,000 in 2017 to 165,244 in 2020 and 107,812 in 2025, Ministry of the Interior data show.
Lawmakers urged Yeh to study the example of South Korea, where the total fertility rate rose from a low of 0.72 in 2023 to 0.8 last year, driven by an increase in marriages and pro-natal policies.
Yeh said there was a “serious” trend of people not marrying or having children, stemming from factors including anti-natal workplace policies, economic pressure and changing values among young people.
Stipends and subsidies alone would have only a “limited” impact on the birthrate, he said, citing an Academia Sinica study.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Taiwan’s three major international carriers are increasing booking fees, with EVA Airways having already increased the charge to US$28 per flight segment from US$25, while China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines are set to follow suit. Booking fees are charged by airlines through a global distribution system (GDS) and passed on to passengers. Carriers that apply the fees include CAL, EVA, Starlux and Tigerair Taiwan. A GDS is a computerized network operated by a company that connects airlines with travel agents and ticketing platforms, allowing reservations to be made and processed in real time. Major players include Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. EVA Air began
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
RSS