Taiwan economy - an ageing tiger in need of cubs - World | The Star Online: "DEMOGRAPHIC COSTS
In fact, the alarming drop in Taiwan's fertility rate to less than 1 per woman - among the lowest in the world - from around 1.7 in 2000, has created a major demographic challenge for policymakers.
As more of today's youth transfer the burden of caring for their parents to the state, government resources are getting stretched to breaking point amid spiralling health-insurance and pension costs.
"Reforms need to be carried out soon or state employee pensions will collapse. The government cannot sustain it for long," Wu Chung-cheng, deputy minister of the civil service ministry, told Reuters.
But fears of a political backlash have discouraged lawmakers from watering down a taxpayer-funded generous average monthly retirement pension of T$60,000, even though a flagging economy can no longer sustain these costs.
A look at some of the numbers makes for glum reading.
Public debt burden is now at a record $550 billion, while pension costs are set to rise to an all-time high of 7.37 percent, or T$147.2 billion in 2016, of the total government budget.
Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je has warned that 10 percent of the city’s budget will go into paying city employee pensions in 2016.
And the pressure on finances continues to grow as state employees rush to lock-in the generous pension. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of retired state employees jumped more than 50 percent to 32,000."
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