The number of babies born in Taiwan during the first half of the year reached 82,712, marking a year-on-year decline of 8.9 percent and presaging a historic low for 2010, according to Ministry of the Interior statistics released July 17.
The ministry attributed the drop to cultural factors, including a general unwillingness to get married in 2009, a “widow’s year” in which the first solar term of the traditional calendar does not occur, and reluctance to have children in 2010, the year of the tiger, as children born in the year are said to have a tendendy of harming others physically.
Taiwan has one of the world’s lowest birth rates already, at 8.29 in 2009. However, the MOI tallies showed that Taiwan recorded a crude birth rate of only 3.58 for the January-June period this year, leading to an estimated crude birth rate of 7.2 for 2010. The crude birth rate is calculated based on the number of babies born per 1,000 per year.
The statistics also reveal that Hsinchu City registered the highest birth rate for the first half of the year among all counties and special municipalities around Taiwan, at 5.8, followed by 5.37 in Kinmen County and 5.0 in Hsinchu County.
To increase the birth rate, Taiwan’s government has drafted various subsidy programs encompassing maternity, birth and childcare, the MOI said.
Nevertheless, Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah said the government has had to postpone the monthly grant of NT$5,000 (US$155.50) for newborns to two-year-olds in households with income below NT$300,000, due to a shortage of tax revenues.
“There is no timetable for implementing the grant,” Jiang said, but stressed that the ministry will continue to press for the necessary budget from the Cabinet.
Chang Hsiu-yuan, director-general of the MOI’s Child Welfare Bureau, said subsidies currently in place include free schooling for five-year-old children, and a monthly childcare allowance of NT$3,000 for children under the age of two whose parents earn under NT$1.4 million dollars annually. (KP-THN)