Taiwan's Birth Rate Situation: Way More Serious Than Expected

AI Translated Image

Taiwan has released birth figures up to Nov 2025, and the November number was 7,946, breaking the 8,000 monthly barrier for the first time ever.

Compared to Nov 2024, that’s an unprecedented drop of a whopping -36.7%.

Of course, even considering that this November had ten weekend days, with the last two days also being weekend days (meaning fewer births would be reported), it’s still serious.

Taiwan's birth numbers are sliding hard, down nearly -20% compared to Jan-Nov last year, with the second half hitting -27% for two months straight. As I wrote a few months ago [link], the Year of the Dragon effect is a highly likely cause.

As everyone knows, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon, and the Chinese cultural sphere usually gets a birth rate *buff* during Dragon years.

China, Singapore, ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, Hong Kong, etc., all saw their birth rates increase in 2024 compared to 2023.

But as the graph shows, Taiwan's increase was negligible compared to other countries. Thinking about it now, maybe the only reason Taiwan didn't totally crater last year was because the Dragon Year effect *barely* managed to keep things stable.

Taiwan's total births over the past year (Dec 2024 to Nov 2025) reached 111k. Since a drop in the -20% range is likely for December too, there’s a high chance the 110k barrier will collapse this year.

It’s predicted that Taiwan’s birth rate will not only swap places with Korea's in 2025 but will fall to Korea’s world record level of 0.72.

The bigger issue is marriage. Based on hetero marriages (Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage), Jan-Nov figures were about 91k, a sharp drop from 108k last year, making it uncertain if they can even hold the 100k mark.

Since marriage in East Asia directly leads to births 1-2 years later, it looks very likely that the 0.72 they hit this year might not even be rock bottom.