But these don’t affect development in the way you think. These are problems, but they’re not affecting the ability in a significant way for people to, A) live long, B) receive an education and C) ability for the population to receive an income.
These are problems that need to be fixed, just like any other country’s problems, but they’re not things that make Taiwan ‘third world’.
There are criticisms of the Liberal Government paying no heed to the Great Barrier Reef and letting companies destroy it. But they’re just…problems that need criticism and solutions.
As I said, Taiwan is a highly developed country with major environmental issues.
These issues definitely do affect quality of life though.
Air pollution is terrible (which reduce life expectancy, causes asthma and cancer, reduces IQ), stinky rivers , are two big ones.
The drivers behaviour and number of motor vehicles in particular noisy polluting motor scooters is the third one, and the easiest to fix actually. I wouldn’t recommend a young family with toddlers to move to Taiwan because it’s difficult for them to safely cross the road . I know this because I experienced it myself with my kids, a couple of times they almost swiped by cars going through red lights.
Oh absolutely. I agree, but at a life expectancy of 80 years, it isn’t enough to affect Taiwan in a way to push it into third world territory. Removing these would just simply make Taiwan shoot up the list far beyond other developed countries.
Taiwan is far behind many European countries (certainly ahead of some Eastern European countries or south of Italy etc) to be honest in terms of overall development and quality of life including the environment, but on a global scale it sits very high.
That would put it squarely in the lower centre of western european development range. Ahead of Portugal and Croatia, comparable with Italy, Estonia, France.
For me, far behind, would mean like China or Azerbaijan. In my opinion, this is tailgating Western Europe, if not among.
It’s nowhere NEAR comparable with a country such as France. I’m not just talking about infrastructure which is good in Taiwan but education, childcare, jobs and social welfare, housing quality , and very importantly the environment. Just the noise and the air pollution in Taiwan…Drop it way down . Of course much of the built environment is very ugly and that is really a factor one needs to consider.
I visited France recently and while I don’t claim to have seen any of the bad parts the villages and towns and cities I did visit were so much nicer than the equivalent in Taiwan. In Bordeaux they even have free municipal activities for kids in the summer everyday, I was blown away. Of course France and many European countries provide excellent public childcare , maternity and paternity leave. Taiwan matches up well to 90% plus of countries out there I guess, but not to some European countries (where I’m from we have issues , I just think France was a bad choice of comparison ).
Now Portugal or Taiwan, which country would people prefer to live in all being equal ? I’m thinking it’s probably not Taiwan because of issues around climate, geopolitics, but mostly the environment isn’t that nice in the towns and cities.
One thing that I noticed in Taiwan is the bad physical and cognitive shape of people aged 65+. I think it is because of the air pollution, the results of which really seem to manifest themselves after a certain age. It really strikes me very time I’m back in Europe how much fitter that age group is back home and makes me worry about staying here long term.
Life expectancy is important, but quality of life at a senior age is important as well.
How the hell does Ireland get so high on the human development index, importing a whole load of refugees ? Gay marriage ? Gay PM? To be fair Ireland is very good to foreigners and women. I don’t think it’s the best place for kids or taxpayers though.
Well, they certainly weren’t born in a country that had a life expectancy of 80 when they were born. Many of them were born in a time when Japanese Taiwan was being bombed by the west.
This kind of rapid graduation to industrialisation means that people from the third world times are still alive. Western development has always been slow and steady since the Industrial Revolution.
That’s a big generalisation. Agreed that older Taiwanede worked really hard from when they were kids and may look it, I believe life expectancy is good though.
There’s a cultural expectation that people retire in their fifties here and I think that makes a lot of people kind of give up , I don’t like that.
It may be a big generalisation, but the numbers don’t lie. You can see that most developed countries started from the same footing while Taiwan and South Korea started off on worse footing.
Few. There’s a heck of a lot of illegals though. And foreigners can apply for housing subsidies and get on public housing lists. Which is very generous.
Maybe they count Ireland’s very generous social welfare to foreigners of all types, basically there’s no discrimination between citizens and non citizens. Also in Ireland it’s all about women getting more places reserved for them in this or that board or cabinet. Women do well there.
).
