TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The birth rate in Taiwan has significantly decreased in recent years, resulting in negative population growth for a consecutive three-year period. A recent study has shed light on three main challenges office workers face when raising children: high living costs, stagnant wages, and an overpriced housing market.
According to Yes123 Job Bank, 74.7% of office workers considered affordability the primary reason to refrain from having children, 57.8% of respondents cited their inability to afford a house, and 39.9% expressed concern about lacking time to care for their children.
These workers believe that a married couple should earn at least NT＄107,000 per month to afford to have children. Parents must also save nearly NT＄6.5 million to raise a child until they are 20.
As younger generations tend to marry later, choose not to marry, or not have children, a white-collar worker shared that she would feel stressed about supporting a child while paying mortgages after buying a house; therefore, having children is not on her plate.
The spokesperson for the Childcare Policy Alliance, Huang Chiao-ling, emphasized that "finding affordable and trustworthy childcare services is difficult for parents seeking a local nanny." Huang urges the government to stimulate birth rates by solving fundamental problems by expanding public childcare centers and workplace flexibility for parental leave.
