The reasons for Taiwan’s low birth rate remain simple

I was in Tainan over the weekend — I have no specific post about it because I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but I’ll share a few pictures. A lot of the temples there have those wooden plaques you can write a wish on, pray, and then hang your wish on a board or tree. If you actually stop to read other people’s wishes (and I do), you’ll notice that one of the most common is to “marry and have kids” or “have a little treasure as soon as possible”. Health, peace, love, family and career/financial success are also popular, for obvious reasons. 

But it struck me — for a country with a population that the news keeps saying doesn’t want to procreate, a lot of people sure do want to procreate. 

In fact, recent statistics show that Taiwan’s birthrate has continued to fall, remaining at or near the bottom of global fertility rankings. There’s some variation, with numbers being higher in Changhua, the outlying islands, Taoyuan and to a lesser extent, Hsinchu.

I wrote about this a very long time ago. The article probably sucks and I don't feel like going back to read it again, but I think it’s time to take another look. Mostly, I want to point out that people do want to have children. The question isn’t how to change people's attitudes; it’s how to make what most people already want possible. Shaming them simply won't work, as this Taipei Times article rightly points out.

Tricky Taipei has already published a good piece focusing on the availability of fertility treatments to unmarried people and same-sex couples, so I won’t cover that here. (I also hit this topic in 2016, so there's no need to repeat). The gist: anyone can freeze their eggs, but one must be legally married to a person of the opposite sex to pursue treatments like IVF. That’s not right and it really must change.

For those who aren’t seeking fertility treatments, however, the reasons why the fertility rate is low should be pretty obvious. Here's a brief recap:

1.) Salaries are too low

When you think about the cost of having children compared to Taiwan’s famously stagnant salaries, would you want to constantly worry that you can’t pay bills or raise them the way you want? 

2.) Housing costs are too high

It’s not unusual to want to own your own home before starting a family, or be close to that goal. Although it feels like new apartment complexes are going up constantly, they’re often half-empty, with many units acting as tax shelters or investment properties, not living spaces. Everyday people can’t afford enough space to raise a family comfortably close enough to work and school, so they delay having children. 

3.) Working hours are too long

In other words, when you’re grinding yourself to a pulp a hundred hours a week for some crappy boss, you just don’t have the energy to bone down.

In addition, if you're a double income household but don’t have family who can help, but both parents work, childcare is expensive. This is probably why so many parents pay for cram schools: most of the time, it feels like fancy daycare because that’s exactly what it is. 

4.) Straight-up sexism

Adding to this, a lot of Taiwanese women describe the country’s pretty strong maternity leave policies as “看得到但是吃不到” — we can see it, but we can’t eat it. In theory it's guaranteed, but we can’t access it. I work with a lot of career-minded professionals and over and over, the women tell me that they absolutely face passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive) repercussions at work for taking their full allotted maternity leave, or are discriminated against in hiring because employers fear they’ll have children soon. 

And, of course, the gender wage and work gaps don't help. Taiwanese women still earn less than men and typically 'female' jobs tend to be lower-to-middle white collar. Women who feel satisfied with their pay and career trajectory are probably more likely to feel ready to have children. 

5.) People are marrying later

Single parenthood is fairly rare in Taiwan, although of course it happens. The government actively discourages it -- the abortion laws are intentionally eugenicist, not egalitarian.

With people mostly intending to have children after marriage, getting married later means fewer years to have children. That's a good thing. Personally, I don’t think my sense of self was fully settled until I was over 25, and I was closer to 30 before I felt mature enough to actually make a marriage work. There's even research backing this up, so it's probably true for a lot of people. In the past this could be papered over somewhat with traditional gender and family expectations, though I would bet just as many marriages were what we’d now call ‘failed’ in the past, even if divorce was not accessible.

6.) Lifestyles are changing

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s not wrong to want to live in a desirable area near work and school, with enough space, near but not with family, as Taiwanese youth are coming to realize the benefits of some privacy. It’s not wrong to want some of the trappings of a good life for your family — everything from travel to new clothes when you need them to not stressing about bills to sending your kids to good schools. Stagnant salaries mean fewer children, period.

7.) Gender roles are changing

Women have known for awhile that having more children means more work for them, if their husbands don’t step up. This is especially true if your support network can't step up to help. Some women have the desire and ability to be stay-at-home mothers, but even for families who can afford it, not every woman wants to give up her career, even if the hours are punishing. Can you blame them for not wanting to take on more in a society with this kind of work culture, where men still do far less housework than women?

This is also why people are marrying later: in the past perhaps one didn’t get as much of a say over what their married life would look like, because expectations were so set. Men earned money, and women could work (often running the most important parts of the family business) but had to do all of the traditional ‘women’s’ work, too. Even the Taiwanese feminist movement of the 1970s accepted this. Now, people want to marry a partner, not a role.

An interesting aside: the birth rate doesn't seem to be affected that much by educational attainment. There's a  drop-off in bearing children between female Master's and PhD holders, and a dip for women with Master's degrees in their twenties, but otherwise, the birth rate for women with Master's degrees in their 30s and 40s exceeds those with college degrees. This is likely because they delayed having those children, so the uptick in births appears in higher age categories.

This explains a lot

This is probably why Changhua and the outlying islands and, to a lesser extent, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, have higher fertility rates. I can't prove this, but in my experience the outlying islands are more conservative generally, so expectations of gender roles and family life may not have changed as much. Plus, young people who stay instead of moving to Taiwan likely live near family.

Changhua has some good things going for it, and the Taichung job market isn’t far away. And, again, if you’ve decided to raise a family in Changhua, it’s likely because you want to be near your own family support network. Hsinchu has comparably lower housing costs relative to higher science park salaries, and Taoyuan is commutable to both Hsinchu and Taipei, as well as being its own logistics hub due to the airport.

So what can we do?

Personally, I’m not sure constantly growing the population is the best way forward. Taiwan has limited space, and it’s already densely packed. Other solutions to deal with a super-aged society until population can level off would probably be better, but I don’t have any to offer beyond increased assistance to seniors. 

And of course, the statistics could be improved immediately if we just created a path for dual nationality for all immigrants, including the majority who are workers from Southeast Asia. 

But let’s say we do want more babies in Taiwan. How do we get people to have them?

Family subsidies are an acceptable start, but they are insufficient and don't seem to be working well. Measures to promote increased wages and lower work hours — yes, both of these, at the same time — would have a stronger impact, but it's hard to say what would achieve this and how enforceable it would be. Crappy bosses wouldn't like it because they would have to hire the number of people actually needed to get the work done and pay them fairly, but the goal would also be to reduce the number of bosses who can get away with being crappy. 

Affordable housing is something that can be addressed immediately. Instead of big infrastructure projects (I’m looking at you, F***ing Taipei Dome and every unnecessary new "Aerotropolis" and science park plan) while greenlighting housing  nobody can afford to live in, why not focus on affordable housing, renovate unoccupied urban structures and incentivize (not force) private construction companies to build human shelter, not tax shelter? At the same time, create or expand a mortgage or deposit subsidy for people with dependent children that can help them buy a first or larger home. 

Affordable childcare would help too. France has a subsidized “crèche” system; why can’t Taiwan? While we're at it, increase the availability of low-cost or free public pre-school, and create more engaging after-school programs for children that don't involve sitting at a desk for a few more hours memorizing facts to regurgitate on tests.

Finally, the government can and must listen to gender equality thought leaders. With progressive laws that don’t stigmatize or render inaccessible single or same-sex couple parenthood, enforcing gender equality laws and a strong “step it up, men (and bosses)” message, chances are we can make Taiwan a society where having more children is once again an appealing choice for women. 

Some of these changes would be complex and difficult, but others would be relatively straightforward. Some do require an outlay of political capital: reasonable work hours and pay will anger employers used to exploiting workers, and some of those companies skate by on razor-thin margins. Homeowners and development companies won't want to see the value of their properties decrease as housing becomes more affordable.

While I do understand the reasons behind such push-back, the changes that would actually solve the birth rate problem will also result in greater socioeconomic and gender equality. A robust middle class creates appealing conditions for people to grow their families. Funny how that works, eh? I'm not particularly sympathetic to those who resist because they thrive on inequality, keeping salaries low and housing prices high.

The government has a choice here: either take the necessary steps to actually address the low birth rate and face the inevitable resistance head-on, or don't -- but then don't whine that young people aren't having children because the financial and housing security they need is out of reach.

Most people do want children. There is no problem with young people’s attitudes and even if there were, they’re not going to change so all we can do is work with them. So we need to look at society for what it is and create targeted solutions that actually address the underlying issues that cause people to decide against having more children.

Mother's Day, But Where Are the Mothers?

Happy Mother's Day!

Because I always have to go against the norm of posting happy thoughts about various holidays, here's an article that appeared in today's Taipei Times:

More Mothers Unhappy Than Not

This underscores a lot of what I said in my previous post on the issue - not only women and couples feeling it's just too expensive to try and raise kids in today's Taiwan (or world, because really the USA is no better), but also that women still have to deal with sexism and discrimination against women of childbearing age in the workplace - at least if they work for a smaller or local company - and that by and large they are also still expected to take care of more affairs at home, and to top it all off, childcare while they are working is prohibitively expensive for many.

...and that a few thousand kuai isn't going to fix this problem. It's sad to think that more mothers are unhappy than not, and that a vast majority of women in Taiwan don't want to have children (and I say this as someone who doesn't want to have children, so I do understand - but I don't want children for personal reasons, not economic ones).

And the way to fix it is to:

1.) Enact programs to combat discrimination against women of childbearing age and mothers in the workplace;

2.) Provide affordable childcare options for families;

3.) Enact campaigns to raise cultural awareness in terms of encouraging more equal partnerships among mothers and fathers in childrearing (and I do believe that a more involved father who takes an equal partnership in his family life, including cutting back work hours if necessary, will lead to fewer instances of extramarital affairs in this demographic);

4.) Take steps toward encouraging fairer wages (I do feel most Taiwanese white collar workers are underpaid for the time they devote to their jobs) and more reasonable housing prices so that young families can afford to live in the space they need to raise children;

5.) Enact campaigns to limit and lower excessive working hours and a work culture that values time spent at a desk over true productivity, and companies that pile excessive workloads on their employees because they can.

You want to raise the birthrate? That is how you do it.

Not that I think the birthrate needs to be raised - if anything Taiwan needs fewer people, not more.

The Low Birthrate in Taiwan

Yeah, I know I've been faffing about recently with talks of caramels and pineapple cakes, but it was a busy week, I didn't get nearly enough sleep until the weekend and I had a headache that just wouldn't quit. So anyway.

I think the main reason why I've been putting off writing this post is because, honestly, a lot of the reasons why Taiwan has such a low birth rate are, as I see it, similar to why the marriage rate is declining. It's hard to talk about it without sounding a little repetitive. I do think, however, that there are some really obvious factors that the government, in its zeal to promote having children, is forgetting.

I should start out by saying that as far as I'm concerned, the declining birth rate is a good thing for Taiwan (as it would be for the world if it were a global phenomenon) - at least in the long run. Yes, in the next few decades it presents a problem as fewer and fewer young workers are around to support the elderly, but I feel like that's a jagged little pill we simply have to swallow to lower the population across the board, and not in a bat shit crazy Chinese "you can only have one baby!" way. The Earth can't handle many more people, we can't feed many more people, the skies can't handle the emissions from the power usage and transportation for many more people...if anything we need fewer people. In total. Globally. Taiwan is in an especially sensitive situation as it is truly running out of arable land, settleable land and resources (including clean water and the ability to develop new land in an ecologically safe way). The government is so guns-blazing pro-baby that it's not accounting for these issues, or for the fact that more children now means even more children to support them later, and eventually Taiwan is simply going to run out of space. The entire world is. (In other words, David Reid said it well).

All that aside, I thought I'd take a look at some of the reasons why the Taiwanese are not having babies - it's not because they're worried about the environment or overcrowding (although these are things that as citizens, they should be thinking about).

Aside from reasons that could also apply to the low marriage rate, there is one glaringly obvious point that needs to be made: most Taiwanese don't think they have enough money to comfortably raise a child or multiple children.

This is a developed-world phenomenon, not just a Taiwanese one, but it seems to be more pronounced in Taiwan, despite the fact that in terms of purchasing power and living standards, Taiwan now outranks Japan.

I'm not sure where to draw the line on how much this is an assertion driven by a culture that values humility and savings vs. how much it really is not financially feasible to have a lot of children, or any children, if you are Taiwanese.

In some cases, I think it really is an issue of thinking you don't have enough money when really, you'd make do just fine if you were to have a kid. Some sacrifices would be necessary, sure, but you wouldn't grow bankrupt. You see this a lot in the USA: we'll have a kid when we have a house big enough for a nursery, and can afford day care, and we're at good points in our careers and in a position to start a college fund.

It is absolutely true that if you really want to have a child, but you want to wait until conditions are "perfect", you never will. If you truly want it, you wait until you can reasonably pay for things like food, clothing, care and medical bills but not until you can afford a fancy crib in a dedicated nursery.

Of course, if you don't want a child, no amount of being ready will push you towards it, and that's fine too.

There is also the fact, though, that square footage in which to raise a kid is an expensive proposition in Taipei - I can see why a Taipei family would put off having children or have fewer children because they simply can't afford an apartment big enough to house them. My husband and I make a pretty good wage and yet I'd balk at the amount of money we'd have to pump into a mortgage if we were ever to buy property in Taipei, and that's for a modest one-bedroom.

On the other hand, it's much cheaper to have a baby in Taiwan than in the USA. Taiwan actually has a healthcare system that basically works, unlike the broken, unaffordable mess we have back home - prenatal, delivery, post-natal and pediatric care are all covered, though you'll have to pay more for electives (such as specialized birthing centers and 'mothers' hotels' in which to take your month of traditional maternity rest). Day care/kindy/nannies are cheaper than the US, but not exactly cheap. Baby-sitting is unheard of, but often you still pay little or nothing for the equivalent: having your in-laws watch your kids, which is far more common here.

Furthermore, the least economically advantaged people in Taiwan still seem to be having babies - rather like in the USA, it's the middle-to-upper classes who seem to be slowing down (no, I don't have any stats to back that up, just my own subjective observations)...so it may be more a case of "we don't have enough money to raise a child without making significant sacrifices" rather than "we simply don't have enough money to raise a child".

Which, hey, I'm not criticizing. You hear a lot of criticism of that view, with the assumption that you should be happy to sacrifice certain things to have a child. I'm not willing to sacrifice travel, and a relatively free lifestyle to have a child - at least not right now - so those folks'll get no judgment from me!

Yes, people with far less money had children just a few generations ago, but let's look at some of the differences that made that possible:

1.) Daughters were married off, not educated, and the expense of school and university for girls was not an issue;

2.) Property was not nearly as expensive and settlements not as densely packed;

3.) It wasn't considered a "given" that your kids would attend university or would need to get into the best high school;

4.) An agricultural-turning-to-industrial society still meant plenty of people in the countryside with space to raise their children;

5.) Kids simply had less than parents today feel are necessary: from learning English to computers to cram school;

6.) If you couldn't afford all your kids you'd often give your daughters away to be raised by others (seriously, that's what they did - "you can't have kids? Need a farm hand? I can't feed her - here ya go!") - my neighbor Old Fang complains bitterly about how this was done to her - "they didn't care about me because I was a girl. They just threw me away, gave me to someone else like I was nothing".

7.) Mothers generally did not work and if they did, they lived with the husband's family who would raise the children;

8.) If both spouses worked and didn't live near in-laws, the children would go live with their parents (this is still fairly common).

The government's financial bonuses for having children is aimed at this issue: I believe the bonus is NT $20,000 (which is in the hundreds, not thousands, US, but is not a shabby amount either). Many women's rights groups don't care for that initiative, however: "We're not vending machines into which you throw some coins in return for a baby" said one activist. "What women really want is a high-quality public day care system."

Which brings me to other points that are similar to the reasons why Taiwanese women are marrying in such low numbers.

When you marry in Taiwan, there are a whole heap of gender expectations pushed on you - if not from your husband than from society and especially in-laws, although it's considered acceptable for your husband to have those expectations, too. You do find yourself in the position that many married women in the USA had to deal with decades ago: working either because you wanted to or needed to, but not expected to be a breadwinner, and yet still expected to keep the house clean and the kids, if you had them yet, reared. Taiwanese women do have mothers and mothers-in-law to help with those things, but that's not always a good solution (I adore my in-laws but this is a sentiment that not many people seem to share with me in Taiwan). It means having to deal with your in-laws ideas about child-rearing, their expectations of your home and who should clean it, and if you don't care for them, having to live in the same apartment or neighborhood.

Is it any wonder that Taiwanese women, faced with the choices of "let mom-in-law watch the kids" (assuming she doesn't like her mother-in-law, which is quite sadly common here), "or take on most of the child-rearing because my husband isn't going to help, while either working or taking a hit to my career", would choose to have no children, or as few as possible?

I've heard that the average salary in Taiwan is NT$30,000 per month, but let's say this is a more middle-class couple and they each make NT $60,000/month (for which you have to be at least in middle management in this country and work punishing hours that are really out of proportion for what amounts to $2000 US). A good kindy/day care or nanny is going to cost NT $20,000-$30,000/month, which is 25% of the couple's combined pay. That is, honestly, way too much - whether in Taiwan or in the USA where the percentages are similar.

So I see where women are coming from when they say that they want good public day care. Either they're faced with a quarter of their income gone (assuming each spouse makes $60K, which is twice the average) or with one of them taking a hit to their career...and let's be honest, that's usually the wife, not the husband. How is that in any way fair - in America or Taiwan? Can you blame a couple for not wanting to deal with that?

Speaking of work and having children -

Taiwan has a more mother-friendly working world, at least in larger companies - there is mandated maternity leave (no such thing in the USA), taking a month off (坐月子) is common and expected, stronger family ties make it possible for most families with babies to have someone care for their child - usually but not always a mother-in-law - while the mothers go back to work, and in terms of purchasing power parity, getting a day nanny or sending your kid to nursery school is more affordable here than in the USA.

On the other hand, in smaller companies it is fairly common for prospective female job candidates to be grilled about - or not hired because - you may be taking time off to have children. Horribly long hours at work - hours that no Westerner would ever find acceptable - make it harder to spend time with children, and if you work in Taipei and your family lives somewhere else in Taiwan, you may be faced with having your child live with his/her grandparents until (s)he is ready to start school at age 7: something not every parent wants. Under those circumstances, would you really be keen to have children?

I still think it comes down to three things:

1.) the expense of living space and child care (if family watching kids is not an option) is too high for most couples: I can't count how many of my students have said that they don't take high speed rail because tickets for them and their children are too high, and how lucky I am that we can still take it as we're only paying for two. Or how many have said that they only have one child because they can't afford kindy or a larger apartment in which to raise two...or who have said that they have made so many sacrifices to raise one or two kids that another one is out of the question.

2.) Women sick of the gendered expectations heaped on them as wives and mothers - we've come a long way in terms of gender equality in Taiwan, but it's still the wife who is expected to bear the burden of household duties and child-rearing. It's the wife who is expected to quit her job if necessary, the wife who is expected to take hits to her career, and generally the wife who shoulders all of the burden. She has more support (family nearby) and more legal back-up (mandated maternity leave, a month-of-rest culture) but more expectations, too. I'm lucky to have a great husband who would do his share if we were to have a child and who is great at helping around the house - he's almost certainly better at housework than I am! Not many Taiwanese women can say the same, though.

3.) Taiwanese people, happy at their newfound, just-in-our-parents-lifetime prosperity, are enjoying life as citizens of a developed country and don't want to go back to the financial sacrifices necessary as a developing one: sacrifices that they'd have to make for children. This is similar to the USA, although we've been developed and "prosperous" for longer: now that all these young Taiwanese can afford to shop at Shinkong Mitsukoshi, go to spas and take four-day trips to Bali, Guam or Hong Kong, they don't want to give it up to pay for day care and school fees. I can honestly say that while I don't shop at Mitsukoshi and I get my massages at local 按摩 shops, that traveling is a heap of fun and I don't blame anyone for hesitating about giving it up. Many Taiwanese still remember how hard their parents worked to send them to college, and how their grandparents lived in drafty brick houses and either farmed or worked in factories. Do you blame them for wanting to enjoy a better life for awhile?