‘Super-aged’ status beckons Taiwan by 2025 as population declines
TAIPEI: Few places have experienced quite as profound a demographic change as Taiwan.
In 1951, the average Taiwanese woman gave birth to seven children. Now, it is less than one.
Last year the island recorded more deaths than births - a watershed moment that signals Taiwan’s population officially contracted for the first time.
In the first quarter of this year, deaths outpaced births by 47,626 to 34,917.
It is an increasingly familiar story across East Asia. Japan has led the way, hitting that population decline milestone in 2007. South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan also joined the club last year. China’s population is now growing at its slowest pace in decades.
Taiwan’s dwindling birth rates reflect the increasing choice of younger people, especially women, to get married at an older age, have smaller families or stay single.
“Women’s growing selfawareness is a key reason,” said doctor Wu, 37. “Many women have master’s or doctoral degrees now and they don’t have to depend on men like in the past. They can choose to cultivate their careers,” she added.
Another cause of low births is the sheer cost of living. Hung Hui-fen, a sociologist at Taipei’s Soochow University, says young couples at their prime childbearing suffer from “time and economic poverty”, working long hours for low pay, forcing them to postpone or abandon having families.
Unless there is a radical change, Taiwan is projected to become a “super-aged society” by 2025 with one in every five citizens aged over 65.
“In the next decade, there will be universities closing every year,” predicts Hung, the sociologist.
“I think Taiwan may have already passed the point to turn around the population decline. What we can do now is to tackle the causes of low birth rate to try to ease the fall,” she added.