Factors such as war, epidemic, laws, and culture affect the worldwide birth rate whether in gender balance or birth rate itself. The Taiwanese birth rate is affected by traditional Chinese culture – the Chinese zodiac. The compulsory education in Taiwan begins from elementary school; thus, the declining birth rate has a direct impact on elementary school enrollment. This study intends to detect how cultural beliefs affect the number of infants and whether that affects elementary school enrollment. The target series data sets are infants and the first grade of enrollment in elementary schools. ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average) was used to build predicted models for the number of newborn babies. The results found that the year of dragon and tiger had effects on elementary school enrollment significantly. This study suggests the Taiwanese government should launch longitudinal planning to prepare the effect of the declining birth rate on school enrollment, budget, and teacher preparation programs.
關聯:
ICIC Express Letters Part B: Applications 12(6), p.499-506