2019年，我帶的大班有二十三個孩子。今年，同樣的教室，同樣的小椅子，十一個。不是因為附近搬走了多少家庭，是因為新生兒本來就少了。空位不是偶然，是人口學在幼兒園尺度上的即時回報。
2026年，台灣生育率降至0.72，全球歷史最低。政府從2019年起累積七年的補貼政策，在這個數字面前正式宣告失敗。我沒有太多意外。
發錢是在漏水屋頂上貼膠布
七年補貼的邏輯，是假設年輕人不生孩子是因為錢不夠。那就給錢。生育獎勵金、育兒津貼、托育補助，每一輪政策出來都有媒體報導、有官員站台，然後生育率繼續往下走。
問題不在金額不夠，是結構性的窟窿根本沒有被碰。台北的房價收入比是15到16倍，國際公認的健康水準是5到6倍。一對雙薪夫妻在台北不吃不喝要存十五年以上才買得起房，然後再談要不要生孩子？這個帳根本排不進去。2016年政府推出「八年二十萬戶社會住宅」計畫，覆蓋率仍然有限，居住問題從未從根本上鬆動。
補貼幾萬塊，在這個結構面前是小數點後面的雜訊。
五道牆，不是一扇門
我在幼兒園看到的家長，每一個都不是「不想生」。他們是被五道牆擋住了。
第一道是房價，已經說了。第二道是工時——台灣工時排全球前二十長，《性別工作平等法》雖然保障育嬰假，但職場文化讓實際使用率不到三成。請假等於讓主管記住你的名字，記住的方式不是好的那種。第三道是公共托育，覆蓋率只有10%到15%。私立托嬰中心一個月要多少錢，去查一下，再對比一下台灣的平均薪資，自己算。第四道是女性職涯代價：女性生育後薪資差距擴大是有統計可查的現象，不是個案，是系統性的懲罰。
第五道牆是Z世代的「生命帳本意識」。他們用試算表在想這件事：一個孩子從出生養到十八歲，台灣的房價、教育費、托育費、醫療費疊在一起，數字算得出來。這不是悲觀，是理性。他們沒有在逃避，他們在做數學。
二十年後的那張人口表
0.72這個數字不只是現在的問題。台灣工作人口預計從目前約一千萬，在二十年內降至七百萬。社會保障體系的設計是建立在特定的扶養比上的，當分母縮水三成，整個結構的壓力不是線性的，是指數級的。勞保、健保、長照——每一個都在用同樣的邏輯撐著。
「Low Birthrate 2.0」政策現在喊出要從補貼現金轉向系統性改革：公共托育、居住正義、工時文化。方向是對的。但政策的時間尺度和人口的時間尺度不一樣——今年出生的孩子，二十年後才進入勞動市場。政策要有效，必須現在就讓三十歲的人相信系統會在他們生完孩子後還繼續支撐他們，而不是看到補貼就知道又是短期的。
那十二張空椅子
我的教室裡有十二張椅子今年沒有孩子坐。這不是一個隱喻，這是新北市某一個幼兒園今年九月的實際狀況。全台灣有多少間教室在發生同樣的事，我不知道確切數字，但我知道這個趨勢不會因為下一輪補貼公告就轉向。
結構問題需要結構解答。台北房價收入比沒有降到接近健康值之前，公共托育覆蓋率沒有翻幾番之前，職場文化沒有讓育嬰假變成常態之前，再多的生育獎勵金都只是在漏水的屋頂再多貼一片膠布。
下一個在我班上的空位，預計會在明年九月出現。
— 陳瑋庭 (Sunny)
延伸閱讀
Taiwan’s Birthrate Hit 0.72 and Cash Couldn’t Fix It
In 2019, my preschool class had twenty-three children. This September: eleven. The empty chairs aren’t an anomaly. They’re a real-time readout of demographic collapse at the scale of one classroom in New Taipei City.
Taiwan’s total fertility rate fell to 0.72 in 2026 — the lowest ever recorded globally. Seven years of cash subsidies, running from 2019 through 2026, did not stop it. I wasn’t surprised.
Cash Subsidies Were a Bandage on a Burst Pipe
The subsidy logic rested on one assumption: young people aren’t having children because they can’t afford it, so give them money. Birth bonuses, childcare allowances, parental leave stipends — each round arrived with press conferences and kept going down in the data anyway.
The money was never the variable that mattered. Taipei’s housing price-to-income ratio sits at 15 to 16 times annual income. International benchmarks for a healthy housing market put that number at 5 to 6 times. A dual-income couple in Taipei needs well over a decade of total savings just to buy an apartment — before the question of children even enters the conversation. The government’s social housing push announced in 2016 targeted 200,000 units over eight years; coverage remained limited and the affordability gap never closed. A subsidy of tens of thousands of NT dollars is rounding error against that structural gap.
Five Walls, Not One Door
Every parent I’ve met at drop-off over the past seven years wanted children, or already had one and stopped. Not a single one told me they were philosophically opposed to parenthood. They ran the numbers and the numbers said no.
The first wall is housing, already described. The second is working hours — Taiwan ranks among the world’s top twenty longest-working countries, and despite legal protections for parental leave under the Gender Equality in Employment Act, actual usage of that leave sits below 30%. Taking parental leave in most workplaces gets you remembered by management, and not favorably. The third wall is public childcare, covering only 10% to 15% of demand. The fourth is the career penalty for women after childbirth: the wage gap widens measurably after a woman gives birth, a systemic pattern, not a series of coincidences.
The fifth wall is what I’d call the Gen Z opportunity cost ledger. This generation has access to enough information to calculate, with reasonable accuracy, what it costs to raise a child from birth to age eighteen in Taiwan — housing, education, childcare, healthcare stacked together. That’s not pessimism. That’s rational arithmetic. They’re not avoiding the question; they’re answering it honestly.
The Population Table Twenty Years Out
A fertility rate of 0.72 doesn’t just describe today. Taiwan’s working-age population is projected to fall from around 10 million to approximately 7 million within twenty years. The social insurance architecture — labor insurance, national health insurance, long-term care — was built around a specific dependency ratio. Shrink the contributor base by 30%, and the pressure on that architecture is not proportional. It compounds.
The new “Low Birthrate 2.0” policy framework signals a shift away from cash transfers toward systemic reform: expanding public childcare, addressing housing affordability, and changing workplace culture around parental leave. The direction is correct. But policy timelines and demographic timelines run at different speeds. A child born because of policy reform this year won’t enter the labor market for two decades. For that to work, a 30-year-old today needs to believe the system will still be functioning when their child grows up — not just believe in the next subsidy cycle.
Twelve Empty Chairs
My classroom has twelve chairs with no children in them this year. That’s not a metaphor. It’s September 2026, in one preschool, in New Taipei City. Multiply that across every preschool in Taiwan and you have the actual shape of what 0.72 looks like on the ground.
Structural problems need structural fixes. Until Taipei’s housing price-to-income ratio approaches something livable, until public childcare coverage reaches a majority of families, until parental leave is normalized rather than career-ending — the next round of birth incentives will accomplish about as much as the last seven years did.
I expect another empty chair next September.
— 陳瑋庭 (Sunny)
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