But are subsidies the answer? Take Canada’s supply managed sector that protects the dairy, chicken and egg sectors. Most of the world dismantled supply management decades ago. You have a very powerful and rich industry in Canada PROTECTING A PRIVILEGED FEW and it makes working class people pay a lot more for milk than the market would normally dictate.
I don’t mind paying 7 dollars for organic milk, but I don’t live there/visit very often.
Why they think the numbers are likely to rebound ?
Taiwan is heading into an accelerating negative feedback cycle where the cohort of potential parents is getting smaller and smaller. There is almost nothing they can do about this unless they open the door to immigration.
But they never mention that so it tells you all you need to know.
Delusion?
I don’t understand how immigration is gonna fix this. People moving here will just face the same problems…or worse because they won’t be able to secure the housing needed to raise a family
If you bring in people, it adds to the population. Easier than making your own
If you bring in people from certain cultures, they will have more kids
Housing isn’t the only reason people here aren’t having kids. When the population wasn’t declining, was homelessness higher? As women get better educated, for example, birthrates tend to decline. Canada, where house prices are also quite high, doesn’t have a declining population, but we let in something like 400000 immigrants per year. Compared to, what, 400 per year in Taiwan?
That is the reason to allow more immigrants, but it is also the reason they won’t.
Lots of young people from SE Asia (and elsewhere) studying in the unis here. Give them a clear path to residency and citizenship rights, give them a chance to contribute. It’s ridiculous to educate them here and then just boot them out.
Btw, the Taipei City mayoral candidates all seem to recognize that government services in the capital are not set up to help new immigrants. I agree with their assessment—though the real change of course needs to happen at the national government level. Check out their proposals and see what you think.
Guy
It’s been a revolving door of international students for decades , shocking how they let all the brains they educated just walk out and benefit their home countries. A big win for the home country
Part of it is soft power. From that perspective it makes sense for students to go back to their home country
The SE Asian students are brilliant. Just give them a break with the immigration rules and this nonsense could be sorted out.
low fertility rate worrisome. Low birthrate less so.
Makes sense doesn’t it? I saw a poll on such matters, only 8% of Taiwanese agree with south east asian (non skilled) immigration. So I guess we know why that ain’t happening any time soon.
I was referring to international students, not the so-called “non skilled” set.
But your bigger point as I understand it is that there are some political hurdles here, which I agree is an accurate read of the terrain. As with the same sex marriage debates, it’ll take some political courage to get this done.
Guy
Going to uni makes you skilled? You are rather optimistic about that.
I’d say it’s an even tougher issue than same sex marriage. How many of even the most progressive thinking Taiwanese are in support of SE asian immigration? I’d say very very few.
It’s just a concept Taiwanese cannot accept, the alternative = extinction, seems to be preferred.
As I said, it’ll take political courage to explain that population extinction is not in our best interests here.
In the meantime, I’ll say it again: give those kids a chance.
Guy
I don’t think so. Depends on how you present the situation. A path to citizenship after staying here for more than 12 years, has integrated into society and no criminal records is not the same as “open the floodgates”. I know very few Taiwanese who would be against letting “the good ones” stay. Granted I don’t socialize with the above 50 population much.
Regardless, attitudes will change. IIRC most newborns are mixed.
There are too many humans on this small island. Talking about extinction is exaggeration.
It’s maths.
@Whatevah The poll I saw numbers in support of ‘skilled immigration’ were of course higher, but I doubt that is the sort of immigration that fixes the shrinking population problem.
This is not a new thing, young people had to please their parents since Confucian times, it didnt stop them from having babies…