TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior announced Tuesday that Taiwan has officially entered the stage of an “aged society” as Taiwanese people over 65 years old accounted for 14.05% of the country’s total population at the end of March, which means one out of every seven people in the country is a senior citizen.
According to the WHO, the proportion of a society’s population that is comprised of persons aged 65 or older is called the “aging rate." If a society’s aging rate exceeds 7%, it is an “aging society." If the rate surpasses 14%, it is an “aged society”; if over 21%, it is a “super-aged society."
According to the MOI, old people accounted for more than 7% of Taiwan’s population in 1993, signifying that Taiwan had entered the stage of an “aging society" at that time.
The MOI said the municipality with most elders in Taiwan is Chiayi County with 18.61% of its population being over the age of 65, followed by Yunlin County with 17.69%, Nantou County with 16.7%, and Taipei City with 16.58%.
The ministry said that in Asia the percentage of Taiwan’s old people is only lower than that of Japan and is about the same as that of South Korea.
However, Taiwan’s population is aging at an alarming rate, with only eight years to advance from the "aged society" stage to the "super-aged society" stage, which is much faster than the 11 years for Japan, 14 years for the U.S., 29 years for France and 51 years for the UK, according to a National Development Council estimate. But the rate is about the same as that for South Korea (eight years) and Singapore (seven years), according to the same data.
