Reversing a trend, Taiwan’s population is growing

Taiwan’s population has increased in the past two months, but on an annual basis, the trend is negative. By 2025, one in five Taiwanese will be over 65 years old. South Korea continues to have the lowest fertility rate in the world. Japan too faces a demographic challenge. At its current rate of decline, China will have less than half of its current population by 2100.

Taipei (AsiaNews) – Taiwan’s population reached 23,194,554 in August, up by 4,490 compared to July, the second monthly increase, the Ministry of the Interior reported yesterday.

The growth of the last two months reverses a trend that saw the overall population lose 257,283 people since August 2021. The island’s population peaked in January 2020 at 23.6 million inhabitants.

The country's demographers estimate that by 2025, one resident in five will be over 65. But in the western Pacific some countries are in worse condition.

In 2021, for a second year in a row, South Korea had the lowest fertility rate in the world: 0.81 births per woman. This represents the sixth consecutive drop.

Last year, Japan had its worst demographic decline since data became available, dropping by 628,205, an annual decrease of 3.5 per cent.

In China, the number of retirees is expected to boom while 20 per cent of the population will be  60 and older in one third of the country’s provinces.

According to the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China will experience a demographic decline of 1.1 per cent per year, starting in 2021.

At this rate, the Chinese population will fall to 587 million inhabitants by 2100, less than half of what it is today.

• east asia
• taiwan
• china
• south korea
• japan
• demographic winter
• decline
• aging
• population