Taiwan’s birth rate is now the lowest in the world

Taiwan has overtaken South Korea as the nation with the world's lowest birth rate, with only 107,812 babies born there in 2025 — a 20% drop from the previous year. This figure is a sobering reminder that modern societies focusing on career, convenience, and individualism at the expense of childbirth and family are plunging toward a self-inflicted demographic crisis.​

Key Takeaways:

• Taiwan has become the nation with the lowest birth rate in the world.

• The number of births in Taiwan in 2025 dropped by 20% from the year prior.

• The total fertility rate in Taiwan is now just 0.8 children per woman, far below the 2.1 required to sustain a population.

The Details:

In 2025, Taiwan's crude birth rate fell to 4.62 births per 1,000 people in 2025, even below South Korea's slightly higher rate of around 6.7 per 1,000, according to The Taipei Times. This decline translates to a total fertility rate (TFR) estimated below 0.8 children per woman, far beneath the 2.1 required to sustain a population without immigration. The Taipei Times continued: 

The number of newborns has declined for 10 consecutive years, from 208,440 in 2016 to 193,844 in 2017; 181,601 in 2018; 177,767 in 2019; 165,249 in 2020; 153,820 in 2021; 138,986 in 2022; 135,571 in 2023; 134,856 in 2024; and 107,812 last year, ministry data showed.

Taiwan’s population declined to 23.3 million in 2025, signifying the second straight year of reduction, with 20% of the island’s population currently aged 65 or older — officially a "super-aged society" like Japan and South Korea.

In addition, the number of marriages in 2025 dropped by 18,685 to 104,376 couples in 2025, with 52,101 couples divorcing in 2025. As most Taiwanese children are born to married couples, even fewer births are projected in the near future. 

At of the end of 2025, people aged 14 or younger "totaled 2,681,890, or 11.51 percent of the population, while people aged 15 to 64 reached 15,944,087, or 68.43 percent," The Taipei Times reported. Fewer young people in society will lead to strained pensions, labor shortages, and faltering care systems for the aged — echoing the struggles faced by Taiwan’s East Asian counterparts, South Korea and Japan.

READ: These 3 things could be contributing to the plummeting U.S. birth rate

In remarks cited by Newsweek, Taiwan’s National Development Council declared:

“As women continue to delay their first marriage, this also postpones the age of first childbearing and further shortens their reproductive period. Delaying childbearing reduces both the likelihood and the desire to have children due to physiological and physical limitations, making it challenging for the birth rate to recover.”

A 2022 article published by CNN showed Taiwan is also facing difficulties in recruiting adequate young men to meet its military targets, partially due to its low birth rates. 

“If the number of young people who will be 18 years old in the next few years is estimated, based on the year of birth and the number of babies, there will be a sharp drop, which shows that the recruitment of various volunteer recruitment units will face huge challenges in the future,” Taiwan’s Interior Ministry stated in 2022. 

The ramifications on national defense could be far-reaching. “You’ll end up with an older force, and one that is overworked — and that leads to declining capabilities and weak morale,” acknowledged Grant Newsham, a retired Marine colonel and diplomat. 

Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang conceded that Taiwan had already anticipated that it would become a “super-aged society” before the figures were published.

The Bottom Line:

In 2025, the Taiwanese government introduced a new set of subsidies meant to spur higher birth rates, providing families a cash grant of 100,000 New Taiwan dollars (about $3,200) for each newborn.

But with housing prices continuing to escalate and wages showing little upward movement, many have reservations over whether these incentives will have much impact in increasing birth rates, particularly since Japan and South Korea have witnessed stunted success despite allocating more funding over the years to encourage births.