The working age population in Taiwan shrank for the first time since the country started conducting regular population censuses seven decades ago, indicating the impact of an aging society, according to statistics released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on Tuesday.
Citing tallies from the latest population census, which was completed at the end of November 2020, the DGBAS said in a statement that the working age population, referring to people aged 15-64, stood at 16.55 million, a drop of 169,000 from the previous census in 2010.
The Taiwan government conducts a population census every 10 years. The latest census was the seventh the government has completed.
Taiwan’s working age population accounted for 71.5 percent of its entire permanent resident population, excluding migrant workers, which hit 23.13 million in 2021, the DGBAS said.
Taiwan’s permanent resident population including migrant workers was 23.83 million in 2020, which represented a 0.3 percent fall from a decade ago, according to the DGBAS.
Among the permanent resident population, 22.91 million were Taiwanese nationals and about 921,000 were foreign nationals, the DGBAS said.
The number of people aged 65 or older in Taiwan rose by 1.23 million or 50.1 percent from a decade ago to 3.67 million in 2020, accounting for 15.9 percent of the total permanent resident population in the country, excluding migrant workers, the DGBAS noted.
In addition, there were 2.91 million people under the age of 15 in 2020, accounting for 12.6 percent of the total permanent resident population, excluding migrant workers. The number of young people represented a drop of 668,000 from 10 years earlier, the DGBAS added.
These figures provide more evidence that Taiwan is an aging society and has a falling birth rate, the DGBAS added.
Northern Taiwan had a permanent resident population of 11.34 million, or 47.6 percent of the total, including migrant workers, in 2020. That represents an increase of 633,000 or 5.9 percent from a decade ago, but the growth was lower than the 873,000 and 8.9 percent in the previous census, the DGBAS said.
Central Taiwan had a permanent resident population of 5.76 million in 2020 or 24.2 percent of the total, up 3.5 percent from a decade ago, according to the DGBAS.
However, the permanent resident population of southern Taiwan registered a 1.7 percent fall from a decade ago, with 6.16 million or 25.8 percent of the total, according to the DGBAS statement.
Eastern Taiwan recorded a 4.1 percent drop in permanent resident population from a decade ago to 490,000, accounting for 2.1 percent of the total, the DGBAS said.
In terms of individual cities and counties, the DGBAS said, eight — New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Hsinchu cities, Hsinchu, Yilan and Kinmen counties — saw their permanent resident population grow from 2010 to 2020.
Among them, New Taipei, Taoyuan and Taichung saw population growth of 7.6 percent, 11.4 percent, and 11.1 percent, respectively, while the population of Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City recorded a 21.2 percent and 4.8 percent increase due to a growing high tech industry cluster, the DGBAS said.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel