TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's population is now shrinking at an accelerating pace, with the true scale of decline finally visible after the post-pandemic "re-registration dividend" — a temporary rebound from returning overseas residents — ran its course. According to the Ministry of the Interior (內政部), the island lost more than 100,000 residents last year — a fivefold expansion in the scale of decline compared with the previous year.
The figures also expose a striking gender disparity: the male population shrank at 1.8 times the rate of females, with the five-year cumulative male decline 4.16 times greater. Taiwan's population has reached a critical inflection point. By the end of 2025, the total had fallen to 23,299,132 — a loss of 101,088 residents, compared with just 20,222 the previous year. The scale of decline surged fivefold.
This demographic turbulence dates to 2020, when Taiwan first entered an inaugural year of negative population growth in which deaths exceeded births (生不如死). The global pandemic that followed prompted border closures. Under the Household Registration Act (戶籍法), residents abroad for more than two years without returning must be deregistered, resulting in 2021's largest-ever paper "evaporation" — a single-year decline of 185,922 people.
Post-Pandemic Dividend Exhausted, Population Decline Reverts to True Scale
Only after borders reopened did overseas Taiwanese return en masse to restore their household registrations, generating a rebound of as many as 155,802 people in 2023 and temporarily boosting population figures. But as that re-registration wave returned to normal by 2025, the natural population cliff — long masked by administrative operations — is only now becoming formally visible.
Among other highlights, the fluctuation in gender data reveals an even deeper structural crisis. In 2025 alone, the male decline rate — a loss of 63,792 — reached as high as 5.55 per thousand, with the contraction rate nearly 1.76 times that of the female population, which declined by 37,296.
Observing the period from 2020 to 2025, the cumulative gap is even more alarming. Taiwan's male population dropped sharply from 11,673,765 to 11,462,401 — a substantive reduction of 211,364. The total female population, by contrast, underwent only minor corrections, declining by 50,740 over five years. When tallied, the number of males who disappeared was 4.16 times that of females.
The disparity in gender decline rates will compel Taiwan's social and industrial structures to undergo transformation. The shrinking male population will first impact the stability of the current conscription base for national defense, and will also create fluctuations in supply chains for construction, manufacturing and other traditional industries that depend heavily on male labor.
Structural Barriers: In-Law Pressures and Obstacles to Non-Marital Births
This dramatic population dive has not only sounded labor force alarms but has also exposed a serious disconnect between Taiwan's current fertility system and social realities. Civic groups point directly to the root malady of ineffective pro-natalist efforts: society remains deeply shackled by the institutional constraint of "childbirth must follow marriage."
Gordan Hsieh (謝國清), standing executive director of the Taiwan Parents Education Alliance (台灣家長教育聯盟), pointed out that complicated in-law relationships are one of the main reasons many young people are hesitant about marrying and having children. In addition, social discrimination against non-marital and single births also deters potential parents, he added.
Wang Chao-ching (王兆慶), convener of the Childcare and Employment Policy Fertility Alliance (托盟; full name: 托育及就業政策催生聯盟), pointed out that compared with Europe's non-marital birth rate of as high as 40% to 60%, Taiwan's total fertility rate in 2023 was only 0.87 — at the bottom — reflecting society's deep constraints from the "marriage before children" concept. He cited the alliance's latest poll, which showed that if non-marital parents were given adequate institutional protections and public childcare, social support would reverse to nearly 70%.
Lin Lu-hung (林綠紅), chairperson of Taiwan Women's Link (台灣女人連線), stated that the current Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) restricts single women from using assisted reproduction. As a result, many women who are unwilling to enter in-law relationships find themselves with frozen eggs but unable to give birth.
Hsieh also mentioned that the government should conduct precise research on social realities and forge alternative paths outside the current marriage system, providing safety protections and an anti-discrimination environment for diverse family types — and avoiding ineffective policy subsidies — in order to truly halt the runaway train of population loss. ◼
>>> For More Reading: This article was first released on the Global Views Monthly Website. Click here for the Chinese-language version of this story: 台灣男性加速消失？5年少逾21萬人、比女性高4倍，「人口失速列車」才要啟動
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