Premier Sean Chen said the government bears the greatest responsibility for pension reform, and the past, present and future of the systems all need to be taken into account, at the Council of Labor Affairs' (CLA) annual policy meeting today.
Chen said the world's first state-sponsored pension system was initiated in 1889 under German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. A little more than 100 years later, numerous countries are discussing pension reform in light of their aging populations, which are imperiling the fiscal soundness of their retirement and social insurance plans.
"Taiwan has never taken this problem seriously even though its population has aged and its fertility rate fallen faster than any other country over the past decade," Chen said. He noted it took 115 years for the proportion of elderly people in the French population to double from 7 percent to 14 percent, but it is projected Taiwan's elderly will increase from 7 percent to 14 percent of the population in just 25 years. Currently, 10 percent of the Taiwanese population is over 65.
"Taiwan must aggressively face its problems, as other nations are doing," the premier stated. He emphasized the government will take responsibility for reforming the systems and asked laborers to cooperate with it and support the CLA.
The premier also echoed New Taipei City Mayor Eric Liluan Chu's statement in his opening remarks that pension systems must take past and present circumstances into account, but the future is even more important. "I look forward to the establishment of a sound system which can serve one generation after another," Chen said.