The Ministry of the Interior has launched a series of measures to promote childbirth recently, hoping that the rewards will encourage some courageous women to help revive the nation’s dwindling fertility rate. I have treated women with reproductive problems for many years and most patients say the government is moving in the wrong direction and emphasizing the wrong things.
The younger generation will not have children for a measly few thousand New Taiwan dollars or a couple of slogans, but to this day the government continues to ignore the needs and problems of couples who really want to have children.
Taiwan’s fertility rate has continued to slide in recent years, dropping to 0.94 this year, the world’s lowest. In 1982, 420,000 children were born in Taiwan, but that number has now dropped to 190,000 per year. Not long ago, the ministry offered an award of NT$1 million (US$32,000) for a slogan that would encourage people to have children and later introduced a subsidy of NT$3,000 for every woman who has a third child.
However, even Chang Chih-ching (張芝菁), the winner of the slogan competition, said she would never have a child just because of a slogan. I cannot see how a subsidy for a third child would mean anything to those families that won’t even have a first child.
Having and raising a child is a complex matter that involves issues such as child care, career plans, education and finances. There is, however, a large group of people who want to, but have not succeeded in having children. Although they are already mentally and physiologically prepared, many must abandon their dream because they cannot continue fertility treatments, since insurance does not cover such medical expenses even though they clearly can, and really want to, have children. The government should follow the example of more advanced countries and offer subsidies to such families.
