Why don't we just let the population decrease

If Taiwan's population is going to decrease

The current population of 23.2 million would have to decrease by 2 million for an effect to be felt

That won't happen for 40 years

Is the population increasing or decreasing at present?

It's currently increasing

It's simple, it's increasing if there are more births than deaths

There are 20,000 more births than deaths a year

But in 5 or 6 years births and deaths will be equal

Then deaths will overtake births and population will start to decline

However we encourage people to have children

This is still an inevitability

It's not like if we encourage people to have children the population will continue to rise, it's impossible

In encouraging people to have children we're trying to alleviate the speed of the problem

Taiwan's problem is not the trend itself but rather the speed of the trend

We just need to slow the pace of population aging, delay it by 1, 2 or 3 years

This is its most important function

Slowing, even slightly the pace of problematic trends

Allows us time to take action against it

The moral values instilled by the family unit

Is something uniquely human

Humanity has two unique features, in my mind

They can comprehend time and their lives are based around the family unit

This is essential, otherwise

In the future, after the population has changed

If you lack this basic unit...

Do you think that government can replace every social structure of humanity?

People often bring up Northern European countries as an example

Do you really think their system is better?

What do you think the next step is for them?

They're in real difficulties now and don't know what to do about it

They've gone as far as they can go

Their tax rates can be above 50 or 60%

You can do nothing but support your country

as you rely on it for everything from when you're born until you die

So where do they go from there?

Their policies...

If the population structure could stop as it is

perhaps their policies would be able to sustain them

But the structure can't possibly stop as it is

It will keep on changing

So you have to understand that

You can't think with only the present in mind

Perhaps their policy suits their current population structure

This image looks good in comparison to other countries

but it doesn't mean that it will be good forever

They can't go on that way

Will they raise tax to 100%,

It is not possible

They've reached an extreme

but their population is changing, is it not?

So what will they do after their population structure shifts

There is nothing they can do

It the end of an era in history

It looks like they are well-off now

but we can't let our thinking be confined to the present

I'm not sure if you understand what I'm saying

At the moment I'll admit they look better off

They pay between 42 and 62% tax

We're currently at a rate of 12%

If we raised it to 30% we could do the same things that they do

but it's not possible, people wouldn't agree to it

Each society has different lessons to learn

They're not social welfare states because of their current population structure

but rather they set out with it in mind as a permanent structure

When my generation was born

A mother... I mean a woman,

not necessarily a mother

She would have maybe 6 or 7 children

She would be uneducated and unemployed

Resources were very limited

but they didn't just have one child

however, we all made it through

At that time, the generation before mine

thought of children as a sign of hope

They were, of course, also a burden

but the hope they gave was greater than their burden

so they would try to bring them up well

Isn't that right?

It's not a problem of proportion

but rather a conceptual problem

Nowadays, we are not talking about having 6 or 7 children

but rather 1 or 2

If the burden of bringing up a child is quite a large one

you might think that a child brings less hope than the burden it entails

then you might be put off

So it is a economic problem

As well as a problem of how you interpret economics

Subtitled by Conor Stuart