Tax on singles
At present, the CEPD has proposed plans to reduce taxes for families with three children, or to pay them benefits, in the hope that this will encourage people to have more children. But many people believe that incentives such as tax reductions and benefits are not sufficiently attractive or persuasive to induce citizens to bear children "for the good of the country."
"Looking at the history of the Chinese nation, government incentives have never been effective at encouraging anything. But penalties are very effective." Chen Kuan-cheng believes the reason the policy of incentives for giving birth is of limited effectiveness is because it lacks a system of penalties.
Chen advocates levying a "tax on singles." He proposes that people over the age of 40 who do not have their own or adopted children, and cannot provide proof that they are infertile or lack the resources to raise children, should be liable to pay a "retirement reserve tax" until age 65.
Some people may feel that this move would discriminate against single people, but Chen Kuan-cheng avers that the concept that "others looked after me, so I should look after others" is entirely natural. If you don't support someone else, then paying a retirement reserve tax to support yourself in old age is not discriminatory.
Apart from this, "destigmatization" may also be a feasible way of raising birthrates.
Chen Kuan-cheng states that at present the birthrate among married people is still at a reasonably high level-the problem is that the number of married couples is too low. The proportion of people in European and North American countries who never marry is 25%. In the past the equivalent figure in Taiwan was just 5%, but now it is approaching 25% too. That being the case, why does society not have more open and tolerant attitudes toward unmarried parenthood and single-parent families? In Sweden, for example, as many children are born out of wedlock as within. It is estimated that the number of pregnancies aborted in Taiwan each year is around four times the number of children born; and the main cause of abortion is social pressure. Chen says that if we could turn social pressure and opposition into support, many more children might be kept and this would do a great deal to raise birthrates.
Difficult choices
Many women's health advocates staunchly oppose top-down population policies, and take the view that women should have complete freedom to decide what to do with their own bodies.
Evidently, the questions of whether people today want to bear children, and how many, are not ones that can be decided by policies and slogans. As long ago as 1971, a professor of demography at the University of California came to the conclusion that people's attitudes to childbearing are shaped by government and media propaganda, but their ideal number of children is always different from the number they actually have.
Population issues are very complex, and touch upon a variety of issues including social, cultural, economic and educational ones. But they are also inseparable from environmental issues. Rapid growth in human populations accelerates the consumption of the earth's resources. According to statistics, in 1900 the world's total population of 1.6 billion consumed an average of a few thousand barrels of oil per day, but today's population of six billion consumes 72 million barrels per day. Apart from the depletion of resources, global warming and environmental degradation, problems such as rising crime rates and increasing unemployment are also closely related to rapid population growth.
Fang Chien, secretary-general of the Green Consumers Foundation, states that rather than encouraging population growth willy-nilly it is better to prepare for the predictable coming decline in population, and to plan and make changes. For instance, one can change the pace of life, and teach people that different occupations are of equal value. He avers that the result of an aging population and labor shortage in Europe is in fact to reduce the gap in social status between blue and white collar workers, and to promote equality between people.
From this it would appear that having more children is not the only way to solve the problem. Chen Chao-nan also says that on the one hand we need to change the structure of industrial production in order to solve the problem of labor shortages, but on the other hand we need to set up adequate daycare provision to increase people's willingness to have children. Apart from this, he says, pensions and social security systems should be put into place as soon as possible, and we should actively consider the problems of older people, and plan appropriately for a future of a continuously aging population. We must adopt a many-pronged approach in order to transform the future human crisis of reduced birthrates into an opportunity to create a more ideal society.
Taiwan Area population indices
Year |
Total population(1000s) |
Population growth rate(%) |
Birthrate |
No. of births(100s) |
Life expectanncy at birth (years) |
Male |
Female |
(1991) |
20557 |
10.0 |
1.7 |
321 |
71.8 |
77.2 |
(1996) |
21471 |
7.9 |
1.8 |
325 |
71.9 |
77.8 |
(2002) |
22216 |
8.3 |
1.7 |
305 |
72.6 |
78.5 |
(2001) |
22339 |
5.6 |
1.4 |
260 |
72.9 |
78.7 |
Source: annual Taiwan Area Population Statistics, Ministry of the Interior |