North–South divide in Taiwan

The North-South divide in Taiwan is out caused by Taiwanese government's long-term over-investment in northern Taiwan and has led to an imbalance in economic development, political authority, medical access, educational supply, savings, and other kinds of inequalities between northern and southern Taiwan.^[1] Because of the imbalance, many people in southern Taiwan feel unfairly treated by the government.^[2][3][4][1]

In Taiwan, the best schools and educational institutions supported by the government are based in northern Taiwan. Southern Taiwanese wanting to study further need to go to northern Taiwan. Engineers or managers in a company often need to go to northern Taiwan to update their knowledge.^[5][3][4]

From 1980 to 2000 in Taiwan, money that is paid, usually every month, to employees kept rising, which leading led to companies moving out of Taiwan.^[5][3][4]

Meanwhile, many companies, which earned more and so paied more to their employees, started to grow in Taiwan. The companies made higher-value-added products and offered jobs needing college education, not the kind of work that needs physical skills or strength as in the past. Because Taiwan's higher educational institutions were near Taipei City, Taiwan, the new companies perferred to go to northern Taiwan to run businesses.^[5][4]

Before 1980, Taiwan's main industries were farming, fishing, light industries, and heavy industries.^[3][4] Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to1945. Thanks to the Japanese policy, which distributed resources for economic development equally , people in southern Taiwan could find job near their homes. That continued a the beginning of Nationalist Party rule, which replaced Japanese to rule Taiwan in 1945. ^[3][4]

Since the Taiwanese government massive invests in northern Taiwan, many people in southern Taiwan people have had leave their homes and move to to northern Taiwan to find jobs. Some people call that brain drain.

More and more Taiwanese move to northern Taiwan. However, northern Taiwan is not a plain, which would be suitable for buildings. As a result, the prices that are paid for people from southern Taiwan to buy homes in northern Taiwan are very high.

Because of the expensive housing prices, people in northern Taiwan have no choice but to cut their desire to have babies. Meanwhile, southern Taiwanese have too little money to have babies, which reduces their desire to do so. That has led to Taiwan having a very low birth rate.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} After many southern Taiwanese people moved to northern Taiwan because they did not homes in northern Taiwan and were new to the area, their pockets were generally not deep enough to pay for new homes to start families.^{[13][14][15][12][11]}

Taiwan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.^{[5][15][13][14]}

In southern Taiwan, skipped-generation families and grandparenting families are common. In other words, many young children's parents have left to northern Taiwan to work, grandparents eventuually become the young children's real parents.^[16][17]