Poverty rates have been used as the indicators in measuring the over all poverty conditions in a society in the past. However, the appropriateness of using poverty rates as the indicators began to be questioned by academic circles in the 70s. This is due in part to the fact that poverty rates can only reflect the extent of the incidences of the population in entering into poverty. It fails to show the severity of poverty and the differential distribution of poverty among others. Beginning with Amartya Sen, scholars and researchers have been hard at work in developing appropriate poverty indices. However, to this day, a universally acceptable measure has yet to be developed. Over the years, however, some consensuses began to emerge. It is generally agreed by researchers that a good measure of poverty indicator should include three basic pieces of information: poverty incidences (H), intensity of poverty (I), and differential distribution of poverty (G). The dynamics and the interrelationships among these three variables can provide very useful information for developing social welfare policy in a society.
SST (Sen-Shorrocks-Thon) indicators are used in this paper to measure the poverty trend in Taiwan for the period, from 1990 to 2002. The trend shows a W shape with the years 1994 and 2000 respectively located at the lowest points on the curve, the lowest poverty levels, while the year 1990, 1996, and 2001 are on the peaks, the higher poverty levels. The year 2001 was the highest among these peaks. SST multiindicators consist of poverty rate, intensity of poverty, and differential distribution of poverty. After linear decomposition, we found the “change on rate” to be larger; while the intensity became smaller, and the inequality approximated a stable constant. Therefore, we can say that the “poverty rate” is still the more influential indicator, and the “differential distribution of poverty” hardly affects the SST value.

The Canadian population has been ageing since the 1980s with the proportion of Canadians age 65 and over continuing to increase to the middle of the century. It is envisioned that population ageing will have implications on both the government’s expenditure and revenue sides. This paper focuses on the revenue implications. The major objective of the paper is to profile the ageing of the population and illustrate how it will affect the patterns of personal income and taxes at the federal level. The research is based on the Statistics Canada medium population growth projection over the period 2000 to 2026 and applying these projections to a micro-simulation model developed by the Canada Revenue Agency to make projections of federal personal income tax.
Our major findings include: In the case of the demographic approachthat assumes only population structure change, the total personal taxable income and the total net federal income tax over the period 2001 to 2026 will continue to increase, but the average taxable income and income tax payable per return will show a decline from 2011 when the “baby boomers” reach their retirement age. In the case of the combined demographic and income approach under the assumptions that both population will change structurally and that personal income will increase, the average taxable income and income tax payable per return will continue to increase over the whole projection period, but that the growth rate of income tax revenue is expected to slow down after 2011.

Continued expansion of higher education coupled with all-time high unemployment rates in Taiwan during the recent years have rekindled concerns among scholars about the consequences of mismatch between occupation and schooling. The major purpose of this study is twofold: first, to examine the influence of occupational mismatch on earnings; second, to compare the effects of alternative mismatch measures on earnings. The data analyzed in this study come from the Fourth Wave of Taiwan Social Change Survey, an island-wide survey. The results indicate that the standard deviation approach of mismatch tends to underestimate the extent of over-education, whereas the self-assessment approach tends to over-estimate it.
This study adjusts the measurement bias of these two approaches. Specifically, it employs half of one standard deviation, instead of one standard deviation, to correct the measurement bias resulting from the standard deviation approach. In addition, this study proposes a new measure combining self-evaluation with the standard deviation method to adjust the bias created by the self-assessment approach. Both remedy measures enhance the statistical power in explaining the variance of earnings; they also improve our understanding of occupational mismatch. Furthermore, this study finds that over-education, compared to adequateeducation, still has a significant positive effect on earnings return. The results indicate that in Taiwan’s labor market, education not only serves as one form of human capital, but also has a significant symbolic meaning.

The total fertility rate (TFR) is the most widely used indicator for monitoring the fertility trends. It can be seen as consisting of two distinct parts: (1) a ‘quantum’ component (complete fertility rate, CFR), which equals the TFR that would have been observed in the absence of changes in the timing of births, and (2) a ‘tempo’ component that is attributable to the advancing or delaying of births. The TFR is a hypothetical measure, because no real group of women has experienced or will necessarily experience these particular rates, so many critiques of the TFR involve the changes in the timing of childbearing. Therefore, Ryder (1959) created the concept of CFR and proposed an equation for translating the TFR to CFR by employing a tempo effect, which is composed the mean age of childbearing. Then Bongaarts and Feeney (1998), and Zeng and Land (2002) improved Ryder’s equations to produce more reliable fertility measures.
Recently, the TFR in Taiwan has declined more rapidly and pervasively than it was expected. Did a quantum change or the tempo effect cause this? This study applied the Zeng and Land’s tempo free TFR method to the case of Taiwan, for the period from 1980 to 2001. The results show that (1) the adjusted TFRs (CFRs) were higher than the observed TFRs from 1980 to 1997 due to the tempo effect. (2) The net reproduction rates (NRR) were kept around 1 before 1998. (3) The tempo effect has been disappearing since 1998, therefore the adjusted TFRs were close to the observed TFRs and from then on, fertility rates declined in actuality. Since the TFR in 2003 was below 1.3 (1.23), that means we inevitably will face a strictly challenged demographic future.