Taiwan's falling birth rate

Discussion Open Forum
1

As you’ve probably heard, Taiwan now has one of the world’s lowest birthrates. A friend recently passed along some research on Taiwan’s “baby bust” - way too long to post here, but here are some highlights.

Taiwan’s birth rate (births per thousand people) in selected years: 1958 (40), 1975 (23), 1984 (19.6), 2000 (14.42). 2003 (12.7), and 2005 (9.1). In 2005, 206,000 babies were born in Taiwan – an all-time record low. Far fewer people are getting married (45% between 20-39 are single; 38% have no interest in marriage), those who do get married are getting married later (the average for men is 31 and women 27 – up from 28 and 24 in the early 80s), those who get married either don’t want children at all (20% of women, 35% of men) or just want one, then the later they start, the harder it is to conceive.

The long-term predictions are pretty dire. Negative population growth will occur in 2016, the population will start to contract in 2022, and by 2034 there will be a serious labor shortage. There are presently 2 million people over 65 in Taiwan, and this number will skyrocket over coming decades to top 7 million by 2051. With Taiwan’s population density still the world’s second highest, the net effect is not fewer people, but older people.

The above may be pretty far off, but the baby bust is already having huge effects in education: predictably, each year the number of students is shrinking dramatically. There were 18,000 less college freshmen in 2004 from 2003, and this is widely attributed to the slowing birth rate of the 80s. In 2003, there were 300,000 less first grade students than in 2002. Noting the significant drop in the birthrate just between 2002 and 2003 (1.51), the Ministry of Education says that by the time the children born in 2003 enter elementary school in 2009, there will 2,900 fewer classes than there are now. That means serious downsizing, and possibly the closure, of a good many preschools, private schools, buxibans, and even colleges.

Anyone seeing the effects firsthand? I know of a few preschools that have closed their doors, and others with just a handful of students – but there still seem to be quite a few that pack them in. Some buxibans are down by half of what they were a decade ago. I also know a good number of elementary school teachers who worry about keeping their jobs…

2

Taiwan is also the second most densely populated area in the world, after Bangladesh, I think. Is all of this chicken-little behavior over the predictable falling of the birthrate, as observed by countless other societies after transforming from an agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial knowledge-based economies really necessary? The stories I see all base their horrifying estimates on the assumption that the birthrate will never stabilize and keep falling, a situation I find unlikely at best.

The undeniable fact is that Taiwan is far too crowded. Apart from the normal challenges of dealing with an aging population, as many other industrialized developed nations such as Japan are dealing with as well, fewer people means less of a burden on Taiwan’s already strained natural resources as well as less of a need to depend on foreign sources for those resources. All in all, I think, a good and natural progression.

3

Mmm…probably not. While I’d love to see Taiwan with less people, the fact is that a declining population almost always translates into serious negative economic growth. I see this as a far more serious threat to Taiwan’s economy than China.

And as the OP noted, this is going to have serious repercussions for Taiwan’s English teaching industry. I think it has already started since the Buxiban industry has basically already reached saturation.

4

I think all this is so stupid. Negative population growth is a GOOD thing. I really don’t understand the argument for needing more babies…

5

Ever hear of social security and cheap health care?

Who do you think pays for that?

6

What the statistics say to me is that the Taiwanese are finally developing some commonsense.

Early marriage due to social/parental pressure = bad
Staying in abusive marriages due to same = bad
Producing as many children as physically possible = bad

Now they are finally starting to understand this. :bravo:
Dinks should be getting tax breaks, not penalties. Every single problem in this country can be traced back to overpopulation.

Awesome cartoon…

7

[quote]What the statistics say to me is that the Taiwanese are finally developing some commonsense.

Early marriage due to social/parental pressure = bad
Staying in abusive marriages due to same = bad
Producing as many children as physically possible = bad

Now they are finally starting to understand this. :bravo:
Dinks should be getting tax breaks, not penalties. Every single problem in this country can be traced back to overpopulation.[/quote]

hear hear!.. :bravo:

although the number of cranky old bastards over 65 increasing over 350% by 2051 scares the crap out of me… luckily by that stage I’ll be a cranky old bastard myself mind you… :smiley:

8

Ever hear of social security and cheap health care?

Who do you think pays for that?[/quote]
Neither of which are even half as important as the environmental concerns caused my overpopulation.

9

Ever hear of social security and cheap health care?

Who do you think pays for that?[/quote]
Neither of which are even half as important as the environmental concerns caused my overpopulation.[/quote]

You may think so, but when millions of people reach retirement age and the subsidies they rely on disappear, you may feel that the taxes taken from younger workers’ paychecks are somewhat vital…

10

Thus a good reason why people should save up their own money for retirement. Not a good reason why we should continue to increase our burden on the planet.

11

I agree completely with the first part.

I do not feel children are the burden. The adults usually are.

12

Well we can’t kill them when they hit 18, now, can we?

13

I like cheese!

14

The ageing population is a problem many developed countries are struggling to cope with. The inevitable weaning-off state subsidy which is happening in Europe is going to be extremely painful, particularly for people in my parents’ generation (born in the 50s), who suddenly cannot rely on the contributions they make over their working life being used by the state to support them in retirement. For relatively young 'uns like myself, it’s much more obvious that self-reliance is going to be the way if you want to be comfortable when you stop working. I don’t have a pension fund yet, but I’m beginning to feel it’s about time that I sorted one out.

How does Europe’s experience apply to Taiwan? There are obvious differences in terms of family support networks and the level of state support available right now to Taiwanese pensioners, but my guess is that older folks will work longer and that the younger generation will continue to look after their elderly relatives, but at greater cost to themselves (possibly further suppressing the birthrate?). In my brief experience people here in general are more financially conservative than Westerners, although there is obviously a recent problem with credit card debt. The reckoning with changes circumstances here will be painful too, but I actually feel the Taiwanese are better equipped to deal with it than many European nations.

15

They do it long before 18 in places in Africa. :s

16

Taiwan will have an easier time than most other countries. The solution is mass immigration and in Taiwan already 1/4 of all marriages are to foreigners (mostly Vietnamese), not to mention the hundreds of thousands of guest labourers here. Taiwan is next door to China, which contains millions of people desperate to get into Taiwan. And since culturally Taiwan and China are so close, the Chinese immigrants will not have trouble assimilating (which is usually the #1 problem with immigrants in most other countries). Seems pretty simple - as soon as Taiwan starts running out of Taiwanese, replace them with Chinese imports.

17

Negative population growth, especially if significant and quick is very bad for everyone.

It’s not just weaning off of state subsidies… You actually get a decline in overall wealth, which means less income, which means less savings, which means less tax revenue unless enough gains from productivity are made to offset the difference. Less income generally means less resources for develop innovation so productivity gains may be hard to achieve.

Those saving you just made and ‘invested’ will drop in value as a) retirees cash in and there is no one who can buy them b) the value of the underlying assets drop as revenues and margins drop or the ability to carry debt drops (including the gov.)

Overpopulation is bad…underpopulation or greying populations have disadvantages too.

18

[quote=“mod lang”]as soon as Taiwan starts running out of Taiwanese, replace them with Chinese imports.[/quote]Mmm, well. Look at what happened the last time there was mass immigration from China… Nothing that’s happened in the last 57 years makes me think the results would be any better if it happened again.

19

Well, hopefully this time they’d come with some money in their pockets.

20

[quote=“jdsmith”]
Well, hopefully this time they’d come with some money in their pockets.[/quote]Last time they showed up with the entire national treasury in their pockets, and they still set to stealing everything in sight.