The failures, eking out a living in China and sending no money home, have never shown up on anyone’s radar, yet their families suffer in working class poverty and their children often have to grapple with Dad’s other family in China. Since scholars and the media typically interview successful businessmen in China, such business people have become representative of the flow of firms and people to China. Hollowed out firms led to hollowed out families in a hollowed out economy. This move was very bad for Taiwan’s economy and security. In other words, preservation of patriarchal control lay at the heart of the movement of firms to China. They also did it to preserve their firms at a level of technology and organization which they could handle, because upgrading to keep pace with the changes in the economic order and remain in Taiwan would have meant learning new skills and perhaps, delegating to modern managers. They did this to take advantage of the cheap labor and the perks offered by the government there. In the 1990s bosses moved their firms to China, burning down their factories to collect the insurance to use as seed money to start new firms there. Nowhere in the government plan is there much will to meaningfully address any of these issues.īuild, build, build, but don’t make housing affordable for regular people. The problems driving the low birth rates are well known: the lack and cost of childcare, the lack of time off for new parents, long working hours that send parents home late in the evening too exhausted for additional labor, low wages for most workers, skyrocketing housing costs, an inhuman educational system and a terrible physical and social environment for raising children. ![]() These measures are a well-meaning attempt to address Taiwan’s globally low fertility and birth rates, but they are rather like poking a heart attack victim with a stick in the hope of reviving him. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that the budget for the government’s programs would reach NT$85 billion (US$3.05 billion) by 2023, and said that the government’s monthly subsidy for child support would rise from NT$3,500 to NT$5,000. ![]() The media reported this week on another government stimulus program to make the birth rate rise.
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