What the cats of Houtong say about the population of Taiwan

Back in September at my blog, I linked to an interesting news story describing how the Taiwanese village of Houtong, located just outside the capital of Taipei, has managed to find new life after its coal mining economy went under thanks to its large feral cat community.

Visitors' raves on local blogs have helped draw cat lovers to fondle, frolic and photograph the 100 or so resident felines in Houtong, one of several industrial communities in decline since Taiwan's railroads electrified and oil grew as a power source.

Most towns have never recovered, but this tiny community of 200 is fast reinventing itself as a cat lover's paradise.

"It was more fun than I imagined," said 31-year-old administrative assistant Yu Li-hsin, who visited from Taipei. "The cats were clean and totally unafraid of people. I'll definitely return."

On a recent weekday afternoon, dozens of white, black, grey and calico-coloured cats wandered freely amid Houtong's craggy byways, while visitors captured the scene with cellphone cameras and tickled the creatures silly with feather-tipped sticks.

I'll happily admit the article caught my attention because it dealt with cats. Since I got my own cat, Shakespeare, a bit more than two years ago, I've paid a lot of attention to the species and the genus.



This isn't just a cat photopost, mind. The ohenomenon of the cats of Houtong actually helps illustrate any number of interesting things about Taiwanese--and world--demographics.

1. Houtong is a community that was a one-industry town, dependent on coal mining. That source of income has disappeared, as cheaper foreign imports and perhaps a move away from coal as an energy source led to the industry's complete disappearance from Taiwan in 2001. Houtong is a community ultimately undermined by globalization. With three-quarters of Taiwan's population fertility rates drop and foreign women immigrate to compensate for a male-biased sex ratio.

Indonesian-born Sumarni, 35, who married a local man six years ago, says she is grateful to the tourists for relieving the town's isolation.

"My three-year-old daughter gets to play with some children of her age when visitors bring their kids here," she said. "There is really not any playmate of her age in the community."

Sumarni has also benefited financially from the tourist influx, piggybacking it to set up a profitable food stall next to her modest home.

One major theme of my Taiwan posts here has been the very low fertility rate, for the main the standard combination of patriarchal cultural norms with the substantial emancipation of women. Another theme has been the sex ratio strongly biased towards men, producing a deficit of marriageable women. Just as in South Korea, this has led to substantial marriage-driven immigration to Taiwan, as Hsieh and Wang describe in their paper, with women from mainland China and Southeast Asia--particularly but certainly not only Vietnamese women--contributing a
notable, if declining number and proportion of newborns.

The number of newborns born to foreign brides in Taiwan plunged to a low of 17,038 in 2009, reaching only 56 percent of a peak of 30,428 recorded in 2003, according to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Health Promotion under the Cabinet-level Department of Health. Foreign brides mainly refer to women from mainland China and Southeast Asian countries who marry Taiwanese men.

The ratio of their babies to the total number of newborns in Taiwan hit a high of 13.51 percent in 2003, meaning that one out of every seven to eight babies were born to such brides.

The ratio fell under the 10 percent mark in 2008 and declined further to only 8.58 percent in 2009, indicating that one out every 11 to 12 babies was born to foreign brides.

The figures have clearly demonstrated that the number of newborns born to foreign brides has been trending downward at a rapid pace.

Observers attributed the decline in the number of babies which foreign brides have given birth to in the past few years mainly to the decrease in the number of foreign brides over the years.

Taiwanese men used to be a priority husband target for women from Southeast Asian countries during the years of Taiwan's economic prosperity. But their willingness to marry Taiwanese men has been undermined by Taiwan's economic shrinkage in recent years.

Statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the number of registered alien brides hit a high of 48,600 in 2003, and then declined steadily to a low of only 18,241 in 2009, accounting for only 38 percent of the 2003 level.

Houtong is a small rural community; given the tendency of immigrant women to marry relatively low-status and economically marginal men in rural areas, it wouldn't be surprising if a disportionate number of wives there, like Sumarni, might be of foreign background. As this Wall Street Journal article on Taiwanese immigrant wives and their children points out, the village with the highest proportion of immigrant-mother children--17.5%--is Shihding, like Houtong a coal-mining village in rural Taipei County.

3. On a related note, the immigrant-wife phenomenon illustrates the diversity of the Taiwanese population. This diversity doesn't include only the Taiwanese aborigines who form 2% of the Taiwanese population, but the mainlander tenth of the Taiwanese population disproportionately concentrated in Taipei, along with the Min Nan/Fujianese-speaking Hoklo who form 70% of the Taiwanese population and the Hakka who form nearly a fifth of the population, alongside non-Chinese immigrants.

4. Incidentally, Houtong has become a tourism destination for tourists across greater China, i.e. China and Hong Kong and Macao as well as Taiwan. This may indicate the growing integration of Taiwan's population into the population of Greater China, as demonstrated not only by the Chinese immigrants to Taiwan but by the growing Taiwanese migrant population in mainland China, for instance the tens of thousands in Shanghai. China's not going to be the only reference point, as the Southeast Asia immigrants indicate, but it'll be quite important, arguably most important.

5. Finally, the demographics of the cat species are the dismal demographics that once afflicted the human species. Cats have a spectacularly high birth rate, bearing multiple litters with multiple kittens for most of their lives; female cats can actually become pregnant too early. Why, then are there not more cats out there? A terribly high death rate: indoor cats live for decades, outdoor cats for years. (Shakespeare's an indoor cat, if you're wondering.)

Thoughts?

How emigration is hurting Gaelic football

The sport of Gaelic football, one of the prototypical Gaelic games revived as part of the Irish national awakening of the 19th century, finds itself threatened thanks to the Irish economic collapse. The County Clare branch of the Gaelic Athletic Association--the governing body of the sport--warned that the young men playing the game are leaving the country.

Clare senior hurling manager Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin fears he may lose more players to emigration.

The Banner County was rocked last week by the departure of midfielder Brian O’Connell, who captained the team for the last three seasons, to Australia.

And O’Loughlin fears that O’Connell, 26, may not be the only departure from his squad in the months ahead.

O’Loughlin revealed: "In fairness to our county board, they have put together over the last two years a work committee, with three or four people involved in that.

"They are fantastic. They sit down, search and see are there any companies around the Clare and Limerick area (looking for people) to get guys something, even on a temporary basis, to see them through the season. We got two or three jobs last year that kept lads off the dole queues and this year, we have three lads not working. We’ll work hard to see what we can do, but is the environment out there? We’re not alone and this is a European problem. Unemployment has risen substantially over the last 12 months. We’ll see can we hold them here but it won’t be easy."

O’Loughlin, a successful businessman in his own right, noted: "Manufacturing companies have dwindled considerably. I see it big time in the Shannon Industrial estate. We’ve had multinationals folding after 25 or 30 years, with very little previous talk of them closing their doors. The Shannon Industrial Estate is fairly depleted if you drive through it. Dell and others have relocated to Poland and Hungary with the loss of thousands of jobs. Counteracting this is a big challenge but we have to come up with new ideas, know our cost base and see can we attract manufacturing companies. The situation is more severe than the 1980s, when I started out. Then, you could go to England or America but jobs there are very hard to come by as well."

Why does the domestic economic meltdown have such a direct effect on Gaelic football players? Shouldn't they be insulated by salaries. They are not, for they are amateurs: they don't receive an income for their sport. They do get compensation for expenses, and acquire a certain amount of cultural capital through name recognition, but that's it. Notwithstanding new schemes to provide financial and other assistance to players, the situation for many relatively marginal clubs seems dire.

[County board secretary Pat Fitzgerald] also highlights the fact that the survival of many clubs is being threatened because of emigration, as reported in The Clare Champion recently.

“Some rural clubs in the county, in a perennial struggle for survival, now fear woes of a more monumental nature – their very existence and identity. What had been a trickle of young players heading abroad to find employment has now turned into a steady exodus as the economic crunch continues to hold the country in a vice-like grip.”

He explains a county board survey showed in the last three years alone, over 200 players have emigrated. “Recently, in Shannon Airport, the extent of the problem facing clubs was graphically illustrated when no fewer than 17 players from three clubs in North Clare boarded flights for foreign destinations.”

He states the findings of the survey showed there was a 3% increase in emigration figures from 2008 to 2009, while this jumped dramatically to 15% in the last 12 months.

“It is not overemphasising the point to state that this represents a catastrophe for a great percentage of clubs because the loss of even a handful of established players can undermine a club, particularly small rural clubs with small catchments. Furthermore, there is no club that isn’t and won’t be affected, particularly in the next six months when a lot more are expected to leave.

“Against the backdrop locally, the Gaelic Players’ Association has also admitted that 15% of inter-county players are unemployed, which is 2% higher than the national average.”

The sport doesn't seem to be that well-entrenched outside of Ireland, concentrated in the Irish diaspora. There is, local to this writer, Toronto affiliate group and a youth organization offering four teams in Ontario, but the density of teams in Ireland seems absent. It is true, however, that Gaelic football is close enough to Australian rules football--a professional sport, with salaries--to attract Irish players to play the sport for an income. Or, as in the case of O'Connell, just to earn an income at all.

Clare hurling boss O'Loughlin says Brian O'Connell's decision to emigrate to Australia is a massive blow to the Banner County.

O'Connell, who had served as Clare captain for the last three years, moved Down-Under last autumn on a temporary basis, but has now returned to Australia for the foreseeable future.

"Originally, Brian was in Australia for three months from last October," said O'Loughlin on the Wolfe Tones, Shannon star, who is a qualified civil engineer.

"He came home before Christmas for his brother's wedding, but earlier this month he decided to go back to Australia long-term. He was in limbo with the job situation in this country not being very favourable, and while he was home he had plenty of time to think about his future.

"And the fact that some of his mates had already gone to work in Australia was also probably a major factor."

On O'Connell's attributes as a player, Clare legend O'Loughlin (right) said: "You'd always regret losing a player of Brian's quality, and as he was only 26, he was really coming into his prime as an inter-county hurler.

The sport's continued existence isn't at risk, as such, but emigration of a disproportionately large number of potential players--and spectators?--for a sport so geographically concentrated in a single island won't do good things in the short or the long runs. The GAA might be well advised to extend its benefits plan.

"Tunisia’s Shot at Democracy: What Demographics and Recent History Tell Us"

Behind the Numbers pointed to a post by Richard Cincotta taking a look at the Tunisian revolution from a demographic perspective: do the demographics look to be helpful? Short answer: hopefully yes.

How long could it take Tunisia to move from Freedom House’s “not free” category (7.0 to 5.5) to “free” (2.5 to 1.0)? South Korea ascended in five years (1983-88). For Indonesia, the same journey took eight years (1997-2005), and for Taiwan, it took over 15 years to inch through the partly free category to free (1980 to 1995). Recent European ascents were somewhat quicker: Poland took four years (1987-91); Romania, six (1990-96); Portugal, three (1973-76); and Spain, four (1973-77). Greece jumped from not free to free in only one year (1973-74), following the collapse of a repressive anti-communist military regime.

To understand how age structure can directly influence a state’s chances of attaining and maintaining liberal democracy requires a discussion of two models of sociopolitical behavior: (1) the Hobbesian bargain and (2) the youth bulge thesis. Assuming, as the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes did in the middle of the 17th century, that citizens are willing to relinquish political liberties when faced with threats to their security and property (the Hobbesian bargain), it is not surprising that support for authoritarian regimes – especially among commercial and military elites – appears high when societies are very youthful and prone to political violence (the youth bulge thesis). When fertility declines, the population’s bulge of young adults ultimately dissipates over time. With much of society’s political volatility depleted, authoritarian executives tend to lose the support of the commercial elite, who find the regime’s grip on communication and commerce economically stifling and the privileges granted to family members and cronies of the political elite financially debilitating.

[. . .]

What does this mean for Tunisia? First, the good news: Despite journalists’ focus on youth in the streets, Tunisia is not a youth-bulge country. Its population’s median age is 29 years – exceedingly more mature than the populations of most states in the Arab Middle East, such as Yemen (median age of 18 years), the Palestinian Territories (18 years), Iraq (19), Syria (23), and Jordan (23). Tunisia’s consistent declines in fertility pushed it into the class of intermediate age structures in 2005.

Intermediate age structures (also known as “early worker-bulge” populations) are distinguished by having a median age between 25 and 35 years. In its most recent report, Freedom House assesses about half of these states – which include Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and Turkey – as free or partly free. According to the UN Population Division’s database, several countries in the Arab Gulf region – Kuwait (partly free), Qatar, and Bahrain (not free) – also have age structures that fit into this “intermediate” classification. But this is misleading; the Gulf states’ median ages are inflated by the presence of large numbers of temporary labor migrants in the prime working ages. Tunisia and Lebanon share the distinction of having the eldest native populations in the Arab world. Better yet, Tunisia does not suffer Lebanon’s difficulties with internal (Hezbollah) and external (Syria, Israel, and Iran) actors.

[. . .]

Now for the bad news: Tunisia’s ascent to liberal democracy is still uncertain. In the annals of history, nearly all of the youth-led revolts aimed at achieving liberal democracy have fallen far short of their mark. Instead, they tend to descend into infighting and typically produce a partial-democratic or autocratic regime capable of quelling violence and limiting the destruction of property. This tendency lays bare the most serious limitation of an age-structural theory of democratization: ultimately, personalities and political action – non-demographic factors – are needed to consolidate elite and popular support for a liberal democratic regime. To eventually attain liberal democracy, Tunisia’s political elite, or what remains of them after years of expulsion and political exclusion under the Ben Ali regime, must seize the democratic initiative from demonstrators and make it their own.

Commenter Jack Goldstone does take issue with Cincotta's analysis on the grounds it's not fine-grained enough.

Richard's insights into Tunisia's prospects for democracy are terrific and I agree with him. However, in regard to the causes of the rebellion,I have to disagree with him in one respect - Tunisia in 2010 is VERY MUCH a YOUTH BULGE country, at least as far as political theory would see it. As Henrik Urdal has shown, youth bulge should NOT be measured as the size of the youth cohort (15-24) against the entire population, but as the fraction of youth in the adult population, those aged 15 and older. The 0-14 group is politically not relevant, and should not be counted in assessing the impact of youth cohorts on the total population's political mobilization potential.

For Tunisia, median age may in fact be misleading (as I didn't realize until I looked at the age pyramids that Richard has posted above). Because birth rates fell very very rapidly after 1995, median age in 2010 is intermediate; but if you look only at the population aged 15 and up, you still see very large cohorts of youth compared to total adults.

Because Tunisia's birth rate only started falling sharply after 1995, the large cohorts born in 1986-1995, now age 15-24, still make up a VERY large portion (33%) of all adults. While the next cohorts are much smaller, so this 'youth bulge' will soon fade, it is still very much present, as Richard's graphs show.

Go, read the article and comments.