Must have been written by a woman, look:
“And women see this happening. They’ve watched their mothers suffer, their friends suffer, their coworkers suffer. They’ve seen women pushed to the brink by these old, narcissistic leeches who demand obedience, money, time, energy, and grandchildren, while offering absolutely nothing in return”
Completely glosses over the fact that the narcissistic leeches are themselves the same women.
These jobs are earmarked for SEA workers in terms of getting a work permit, like factory work and labour. I asked immigration many years ago and the guy laughed and said, those jobs aren’t for you. (Talking about whitey)
I had various local friends that owned business in the trades, they had trouble finding help but no easy way to get a work permit for me. Mind you, at the time buxi paid more.
International students who will work for minimum wage and get their work permit through their uni must be pulling the wages down
Has that changed now? Used to be you had to be from certain English speaking countries, I don’t remember international students being allowed to get a job at a cram school. This must have changed.
To get a work permit for a buxiban, I think this is still the case.
But the international students get what amounts to open work rights up to 20 hours I week IIRC. They just have to apply through their uni, I’m not sure when this started. Many of them work in restaurants, too
Edit: 20 hours per week during the semester, unlimited in summer and winter breaks
https://oia.ntu.edu.tw/en/internationalstudents/degreestudent/survivalguide/workpermit
Loads of my overseas uni students work legally at cram schools teaching English. They’re mainly from countries with English as close to native speaker, but not always.
And yet Taiwan still has the lowest birth rate in the world. Other countries offer longer, better-paid leave with actual job security.
What should be done? At least a year of leave, mandatory job protection, and flexible work policies.
Raising a child costs NT$6 million, and they think NT$5,000 a month until 6 is going to change anything? Even South Korea offers more, and they’re still struggling.
What should be done? Real tax breaks, NT$15,000+ subsidies, and free childcare.
Parents still struggle to find affordable daycare, forcing many mothers to quit work entirely. Germany and France offer free, widely available childcare. Taiwan? Not even close.
Taiwan had 139,000 births in 2023. IVF accounted for barely 14% of that. Throwing money at fertility treatments doesn’t fix why people don’t want kids in the first place.
Also a great majority of those needing fertility treatments are those who are already financially settled and can afford and willing to pay regardless.
Free public high school tuition should be a given. However, I don’t think the government should be throwing money at private high schools run by gangsters.
Seven days. South Korea gives 90 days before birth and one full year after. Pathetic.
Throwing rent money at students while families still can’t afford homes is an embarrassing joke.
South Korea has built over 1.1 million in the past decade. Taiwan needs to catch up, fast.
The fact that Taiwan’s birth rate keeps falling proves these policies are failing. The government is throwing out small cash incentives while ignoring the real problems… insane work hours, job instability, unaffordable housing, and no real support for parents.
They are doing stuff but the money invested is far too little.
The child subsidies in particular are just far too low and finish at 6 years old but kids will be staying with you up to 20 something in many cases.
The main issue for local would be parents is the child benefit is too low (considering the cost ho housing and private education fees) .If it was cash neutral or cash positive we would see loads more kids.
The other thing that is always forgotten is that there are close to 1 million foreigners of child bearing /rearing age that basically are prevented from starting a family and raising kids here. That’s a lot of kids not being born in all those hinterland towns that are full of migrant workers.
These are just the bigger issues. There’s a whole lot of other child unfriendly things here , such as the fact that they are often charged full prices for many things , no family discount, you have to pay for your kids NHI premiums etc.
And the population is still going down. So those things are as good as nothing.
I think the social housing is a good one personally but i doubt 33,000 homes is going to make much difference out of 23 million.
I’m not sure why you insist on patting them on the back for doing next to nothing and getting zero results.
Bottom line - they are not taking it seriously enough by a long shot and the results show for it. And in future its going to show even more in a dire and miserable way for all of us. Back pats are not what we need, massive action is.
No not factory jobs. I mean office jobs
Attitude of Bosses regarding maternity leave is also awful. One of the female employee in my company was fired by our big boss saying her performance was not great in past year and she was absent for many months.
Guess what. She was on maternity leave as she just had a baby and so according to our boss, she had poor performance .
But what action, money is just for show?
Where I am from in Japan I see a lot more kids than in Taiwan (Birth rate is about 2-40% higher than TW, but still low it’s just Taiwan is super low).
Some differences in Japan and Taiwan. Taiwanese work a lot, a lot more hours. At 5-6pm , pubs in Japanese stations are full with office / workers having a good time with mates while this is rare in Taiwan, Taiwan still has longer hours (250+ hours per term than Japan). List of countries by average annual labor hours - Wikipedia
Taiwan’s funds needed on schools is high, and most go to Uni where it costs more. Much fewer Japanese go to Uni’s , many work or follow trades pathway after secondary school. Younger Japanese work much fewer hours and are will be at home with family. With less study years, people marry earlier and have kids earlier with less worry on jobs.
Travel and expensive goods: Taiwanese (more women) spend a lot of funds and time on travel, a goal very important to many Taiwan, more so than family. In Japanese less than 30% have passports and the percentage that use them is less. In fact most Japanese prefer stay near home, better for family life. Japanese tend buy cheaper small cars, homes are much less, (outside a few expensive areas homes less than €70,000 are common). The car paradox is interesting on why Taiwanese like big cars, not small cars I see like in Japan or in Euro land.
Some like things that hinder the birthrate: Single parents, both Taiwan and Japan have thinking you need be married to have kids, it hinders singles from having kids.
Men still in both Taiwan and Japan tend spend a lot time on household and childcare. My Taiwanese staff (all female) in Estonia/Finland comment often how much more men in there do more on this. One recent story, we went to kebab place, four mates (all men) drinking tea/beer with a light meal and kids in the prams fed kids items had the Taiwanese girls wishing men here would take childcare actions like this more.
Stop moving the goalposts. You claimed the government is doing “nothing,” we tell you this is untrue, you claim ignorance and ask for details, which are then provided, and now you say that is not what you meant, you meant that existing measures are inadequate—well duh!
If you wish to discuss things, at least do so in good faith.
Guy
I’m not moving the goalposts. If there are no results then these are as good as nothing.
Stop patting them on the back for failing. Its pathetic.
For example: social housing. Build it on a massive scale. 33,000 is nice and all but its not enough for any effect.
Firstly though they need to be serious about the problem. Put enough money and the best minds and experts into finding a soloution. Take the problem seriously. Every country needs to be doing this but Taiwan more so as its numbers are one of the worst on the planet.
His point stands. It was kinda obvious he didn’t mean literally nothing, just nothing useful. Duh.
This is very important . For a lot of families buxiban fees are the second biggest expense or even biggest expense after housing and food.
For some they are actually the biggest expense as they share housing with grandparents.
Again the government hasn’t done anything really to get buxibans out of the education system.
It’s very much a hamster wheel where parents spend money so there kids can complete for plentiful college places…the system is pretty nuts.
Teachers actually like this system buxibans take the load off them.
Ministry for education sucks and parents mindsets are equally a big part of the problem.
And these things are, sadly, basically baked in to the culture. Part and parcel
In some ways the buxiban system is great for parents because it’s a form of childminding which is badly needed given how many hours people can work nere.
But it’s expensive , it needs to be reduced in size/scope e .g. No classes after 7pm or 8pm and also more subsidies for children to be available. Some limited effort has been made to provide after school supervision in public schools but it inevitably increases loading on kids
The MOE are ignoring the overwork of children actually and their lack of physical activity The sheer hours they are being put thru to toil thru classes and homework this is their biggest failing.
Lack of sleep too. That’s a huge negative for growing children.