Premier Sean Chen on July 26 instructed relevant ministries to continue extending full and comprehensive child care support services to encourage Taiwanese people to have more children. The premier also demanded rolling reviews of the policies in order to provide services that best respond to social trends.
Chen made the statement after listening to a child care policy implementation report by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI).
Premier Chen underscored that child care services is an important part of population policy, and as the fertility rate has declined in recent years, the government has provided a wider range of services to encourage marriage and child rearing. According to public opinion surveys and studies, the availability of comprehensive and universal child care services has the greatest positive impact on people's desire to have children, as a trustworthy child care support network can help parents balance work and family.
Taiwan's total fertility rate was 0.89 in 2010 and 1.06 in 2011, according to MOI statistics. This year, the auspicious year of the dragon on the Chinese zodiac, the fertility rate is projected to rise to 1.24. Although the birth rate is recovering, because it has been low for over a decade, the country could face problems like labor and productivity shortages, an overburdened middle-aged population, declining tax revenue, and education and manpower imbalances in the future, which would deal a blow to national competitiveness. Hence, producing proactive measures that would increase fertility remains one of the government's top priorities, Chen said.