Introduction

The quality and quantity of a population play an important role in a country’s development, therefore, research on population is greatly valued by advanced countries. In accordance with the need for the country’s social and economic development, as well as strengthening the education and research on population, in 1972, the school’s vice president for academic affairs, Prof. Huo-Yao Wei, convened the Population Problem Studies symposium, during which the founding of a population problem studies division was decided. In 1974, the Center for Population Research was established. Also, in 1985, with the funding from Asia Society, the Women’s Research Program was established, and it has been successfully promoting studies on gender issues. The name of the center was changed to the Population and Gender Studies Center in 1999, and again to the Center for Population and Gender Studies in 2013. It is the only academic department working on the studies of population and gender in Taiwan. The center publishes the Journal of Population Studies, Journal of Women’s and Gender Studies, and Forum in Women’s and Gender Studies, as well as other special journals from time to time; it serves as a platform for cross-academic communication.

It’s been 43 years since the Center for Population and Gender Studies was established, and it has reached a great scope with contributions from many scholars and experts. Previous directors and executive secretaries are as follows: founding director Huo-Yao Wei and executive secretary Tsong-Shien Wu; director Chi-Ching Yao, director Hong-Chin Tsai (1984), director Cheng-Hung Liao (1985-1990), director Lan-Hung Chiang (1991-1996; 2002) and executive secretary Yeu-Sheng Hsieh (1991-1992), executive secretary Chih-Hong Sun (1993-1996), director Tung-Liang Chiang (1997-1998), director Shwu-Chong Wu (1999-2001), director Cherng-Tay Hsueh (2003; 2007-2009), director Bih-Hearn Lee (2009-2010), director Chin-Hwa Chang (2004-2007; 2010-2013), director Min-Jen Lin (2013-2016), Duan-Rung Chen (2016 -2018), and the current director, Theresa Der-Lan Yeh(2019 -till now).

There are three divisions under the center: the Population Division, Women and Gender Division and Information Division. The center boosts its integration of scholars from different departments, including the College of Medicine, College of Public Health, College of Social Sciences, College of Agriculture, College of Science, College of Liberal Arts and College of Engineering. It studies a wide range of topics on the population problems and gender issues in Taiwan, such as problems of living quality, rural-urban development and population change, population migration and regional development, studies on social factors of family planning, labor and education development studies, population aging, new immigrants, gender and propagation, gender and medical care, non-conforming intimate relationships, etc.