TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A survey has found that if government support systems were established, nearly 70% of respondents would support childbearing by unmarried couples and single women.
Taiwan’s fertility rate is among the lowest in the world, per CNA. The Childcare Policy Alliance on Tuesday called on the government to address “the elephant in the room” regarding ultra-low birth rates and the lack of support for non-marital childbearing.
The survey showed that without proper safeguards, 71% opposed non-marital childbearing and 61% opposed single-parent childbearing. However, once both parents have legal obligations toward the child, and public childcare and anti-discrimination protections are in place, opposition would flip to nearly 70% support.
Views on single women raising children were similar. Without public childcare, anti-discrimination, and workplace support, 60% opposed single women having children, but with proper systems in place, roughly 70% supported it.
The alliance’s convener, Wang Chao-ching (王兆慶), said, “Taiwanese are not as conservative as imagined. Unlike same-sex marriage, people do not judge non-marital childbearing morally.”
Wang also cited international comparisons. Singapore’s fertility rate fell to 0.87, with officials acknowledging that subsidies alone no longer work and that reshaping marriage and childbearing culture is necessary.
Similarly, South Korean officials reported that more people are having children outside marriage. Both cases show non-marital childbearing is gaining attention internationally, and Taiwan should follow suit, said Wang.
Lin Lu-hung (林綠紅), chair of Taiwan Women's Link, said Taiwanese women are not unwilling to have children, but many do not want to enter marital relationships to do so. Some local government programs subsidize social egg freezing, but often require marriage or infertility of one partner, preventing single women from using their own eggs and leading to wasted reproductive potential.
She called on the Legislative Yuan to pass provisions in the Assisted Reproduction Act that allow single women access to reproductive technologies, alongside institutional and resource protections.
Lee Ying-hsueh (李盈學), policy director at the Awakening Foundation, said, “Poverty among single mothers is often misinterpreted as a moral failing, when in fact it results from systemic punishment.” She urged the government to follow OECD recommendations, ensuring children of all family types benefit from public care resources and anti-discrimination protections.
Alliance of Educare Trade Unions supervisor Chen Liang-yin (陳亮吟) said single-parent families face greater childcare and economic challenges. Policies should not only focus on “heterosexual two-parent families,” but also provide high-quality public childcare and support single parents with entitlements like 12 months of paid parental leave with double benefits.
Wang highlighted Taiwan’s rigid marriage-and-childbearing system as a key obstacle for young people choosing to have children. In Europe, 40-60% of births occur outside marriage, while fertility rates remain around 1.5–1.6.
Taiwan and South Korea’s “must marry to have children” culture results in extremely low non-marital birth rates and some of the lowest total fertility rates worldwide. Wang said the government must challenge the entrenched belief that having children requires marriage.
The alliance conducted the online survey from Feb. 13-24, collecting 1,305 responses, 88.5% of which were from women.
