The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced recently that next year it will introduce a policy involving subsidizing assisted reproduction for infertile couples to increase Taiwan’s fertility rate.
Giving subsidies to economically disadvantaged, infertile couples to help them have children is a great idea. However, the main reason behind the declining birth rate is not infertility, but rather that potential parents cannot afford to raise children.
While assisted reproductive technology has become increasingly advanced in Taiwan over the past decade, the average live birth rate per embryo transfer cycle has remained at a mere 27 percent, which means that on average, an infertile couple will have to go through three or four rounds of therapy before the process is successful.
Therefore, the government has drawn up a three-year budget of NT$940 million (US$31.4 million) for artificial reproduction subsidies, of which almost NT$670 million will be spent on failed therapies, which is hardly cost-effective.
Furthermore, the ministry has forecast that 4,000 children will be born three years after the policy is implemented and that for each child born, an average of NT$235,000 will have been paid out in subsidies.
Given the government’s substantial debts and that such debt is passed on from one generation to the next, it seems somewhat inappropriate and unreasonable of the government to spend tax revenue in this way.
The ministry believes that the government’s seven major policies aimed at tackling the declining birth rate have been effective enough to create a positive environment in which people can rear children and all that is required now is for people to start having babies.
Yet the current social welfare system only partially subsidizes child care and medical care, while the government has no clear plans for subsidizing the daily necessities for raising children that need to be covered by parents, such as clothing, food and living expenses.
Thus, this is a policy that looks good on paper, but that provides no real benefits. The result will be that those who cannot afford to have children are less likely to apply for the subsidies, while those who are better off and can afford to raise children will be the only ones with the means to apply each year, which will cause a negative distribution of government funding.
In addition, because of the economic incentives, doctors might be inclined to encourage younger couples to try artificial reproduction — citing the higher success rates in younger couples — discouraging the natural process of pregnancy in favor of medical procedures, which expose both mother and child to the risks involved in assisted reproduction.
Policies aimed at assisting the economically disadvantaged have always been of high importance, but the government’s ideas about the nature of artificial reproduction and child rearing are impractical.
Without carrying out a complete cost-effectiveness analysis or a social impact assessment of these policies and putting them into practice before the next presidential election, the only thing to be certain of is that within the next three years, 74 medical centers for assisted reproduction will gladly take both the NT$940 million that the government will give them and all the business opportunities this might create.
Huang Sue-ying and Tsai Wan-fen are president and secretary-general respectively of Taiwan Women’s Link.
Translated by Drew Cameron
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS