Taiwan’s government data, on Friday, showed that the country’s population shrank for the first time ever in 2020, amidst facing a burgeoning demographic crisis similar to those affecting South Korea and Japan, reported AFP.

In 2020, births plunged to 165,000, down by 7% from 2019. According to the interior ministry, deaths overtook births for the first time, pushing the island’s overall population down 0.2% to 23.56 million.

Birth rate in Taiwan has been falling continuously since 2000, a period where wages have remained stubbornly stagnant. Some working women have been forced to postpone motherhood plans due to rising living expenses as well as insufficient childcare support. 

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The rapidly ageing population has also been a matter of concern as it will result in  the island’s economy suffering from a declining workforce.

The previous record low was 166,000 babies born in 2010, the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac, when births typically fall because of many taboos associated with the sign.

The Year of the Dragon, next due in 2024, is considered the most auspicious in the Chinese zodiac and usually sees a spike in births.

In 2019, Taiwan’s birth rate was the second-lowest in the world after South Korea, where the population also fell for the first time in 2020.

Experts say there are multiple causes for the phenomenon in South Korea, including the expense of child-rearing and soaring property prices, coupled with a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs hard to get.

Japan first registered a population decline back in 2011.

Some countries are bracing for a spike in annual deaths for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Taiwan is one of the few places to have successfully halted the virus and kept it away with just eight recorded deaths and 825 infections.

The number of deaths Taiwan recorded in 2020 was 173,156, a 1.8% drop from a year earlier.