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The Economic Roundup is an excerpted translation of the Chinese-language ROC Economic Yearbook published by the Economic Daily News, a sister publication of the Taiwan Economic News. The yearbook is the most comprehensive and authoritative source for understanding the fundamentals of Taiwan's economy, both in the macro and micro aspects. The excerpted translation gives foreign readers a concise view of the island's overall economic picture. It is divided into four parts: general economy, primary industries, secondary industries, and tertiary industries.
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| General Economy > Population |
| Taiwan's population numbered 22,690,000 at the end of 2005, for a growth of 0.329%, lower than 2004's 0.357%. The birth rate declined further to 0.905% in 2005, down from 2004's 0.955%. The mortality rate advanced to 0.613% from 0.597%, and the natural population growth rate slipped to 0.292% from 0.358%. Social population growth stood at 0.307%, representing net immigration, compared with 2004's negative 0.001%, representing net emigration. At the end of December 2005, there were 7.26 million registered households in Taiwan, 1.6% more than 2004. At the end of 2005, the 0-14 age group accounted for 18.7% of the total population, and the share of the 15-64 age group, the main working population, was 71.6%. The group aged 65 and over accounted for 9.7%. Despite the continuing increase of the aged population, the overall population structure still had a bell-shape curve, with the population of working ages constituting over 70% of the total. In 2005, the average life expectancy was 73.71 years of age for males and 79.79 for females, both up 0.16 year from the 2004 level. 205,000 babies were born in 2005, 10,000 less than 2004. The overall birth rate was 1.12 persons, much lower than the population substitution level of 2.1. The continuing decline in the birth rate not only leads to demographic change, but also affects the modes and contents of people's current and future production and consumption. In the short term, people are expecting more incentives for bearing babies in order to boost the birth rate. In the long run, people are looking for population policies which can achieve the following goals: an optimal population scale without exceeding the limit tolerated by the ecological environment, excellent population quality needed by current and future social and economic development, demographic structure suited to the nation's manpower utilization and development direction, construction of the network for the care of children and senior citizens, gradual realization of reasonable population distribution, and adequate immigration policy to introduce needed manpower without impacting social and economic stability and security. |
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