The current budget proposal includes a number of measures to try and boost Taiwan’s low birth rate, but are they focusing on the right areas?
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/10/19
By: David Spencer, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer
The low birth rate in Taiwan is a source of great concern to its politicians and in recent
(Image from goodfreephotos.com)
days have drawn attention to some of the interesting policy ideas they have conjured up to address it.
The number of babies being born in Taiwan has declined steadily in recent years. The country currently sits in the bottom three or four in the Global Rankings, depending on which measure you look at. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior (內政部), numbers continued to drop in the first seven months of this year, with just 110,379 babies being born in Taiwan; a six percent decline on the same period in 2016.
The reasons for this declining birth rate are very much open for discussion. When releasing the statistics for this year, Wanda Chang (張琬宜), director of the Department of Household Registration Affairs claimed it was “the result of fewer marriages and of people choosing to get married when they are older.” [FULL STORY]