A comparative study of major of social indicators focusing on the population between Korea and Taiwan

한국과 대만의 주요 사회지표 비교고찰 -인구지표를 중심으로-

It is worthwhile to compare the major social indicators between Korea the and Taiwan particularly focusing on population because two countries share close similarities in many aspects and gave access to the advanced level among the developing countries in recent years. Similarities or dissimilarities presented in this paper will be helpful to the researchers and the policy makers of the two countries by giving them insight on the situation. The similarities and dissimilarities between the two countries in the field of demography and social indicators are summarized as follows : 1. Similarity indicators can be found in fertility. One of them is Net Reproduction Rate and it was less than one in both countries in 1985. The past trend of fertility, in fact level and pattern of it, of the two countries from 1960 to 1985 has been very similar. 2. Level and pattern of mortality is quite different between two countries. Mortality level of Taiwan is lower than that of Korea. 3. The close similarity between two countries was shown in population structure and aging index. 4. On future population projection, the population structure and the level and pattern of fertility of the two countries are very similar. During fourty years, the period from the current population growth rate which is a little more than 1% to the zero growth rate, the annual population growth rate of the two countries is approximately 0.6% and that is similar to those of the current industrialized countries. According to the medium variant of the projection, Korean population will reach Zero Growth Rate between 2020 and 2025 whereas Taiwan between 2025 and 2020 5. Current level of contraceptive prevalence of both countries is very similar showing above 70% of the eligible women in 1985 and one of the valuable factors of achieving this high rate within short period must be the national program of the family planning. A close cooperation in the field of population policy formulation and its implementation is indispensable because Korea and Taiwan have similarity in many population indicators.