At the third interdisciplinary Brown Bag Talk in April, held on the 14th in Meeting Room 3, 12F (South Wing) of the General Building, Professor Chiang Ying-hui from NCCU’s Department of Land Economics delivered a presentation titled “Do Older People Live in Older Homes? Applications of Interior Ministry Big Data.” In her opening remarks, Dean Yang Wan-ying noted that this topic commands wide attention today: it is not merely a matter of an ageing population or ageing housing. Many young adults, she observed, may also be unable to secure “young” dwellings. The issue therefore spans generations and intersects with soaring housing prices, ageing building stock, and rural-urban transformation.
The Brown Bag Talks—linked to an NDC integrated research project on evidence-based social-policy governance—begin with social issues and couple them with social-science methods to explore policy directions. Two earlier talks this semester, by Prof. Hsiao Nai-yi (Public Administration) and National Treasure Project founder Hsiao Hsin-cheng, discussed big-data web opinion and U.S. National Archives materials. Dean Yang explained that the Brown Bag format encourages faculty to exchange research; she hopes this session will evolve into a mini expert meeting that starts with housing yet extends to related social concerns, asking what data can help and how those questions can be answered.
Professor Chiang’s talk had two parts: an introduction to Interior Ministry big data and an analysis of whether older people indeed live in older homes. She joked that entering the ministry’s data space feels like stepping into a “locked room.” Since October 2021, the research team has been extracting data there. The land-administration and household-registration databases now let researchers see who bought property, for how much, and how many houses each person owns—filling past data gaps and opening new research avenues.
Inside the “locked room,” some data are already linked—for example, “people + houses + GIS.” With overlapping layers, one can quickly answer questions such as “Is your home in a liquefaction zone?” Yet limits remain: fiscal data and actual-price registration are not yet included. Prof. Chiang suggested that future NDC projects negotiate for additional datasets.
The talk drew faculty from many fields as well as attentive students. Dean Yang compared “telling stories with data” to treasure hunting: early finds are caked in dirt and need cleaning—just like raw data that must be organised before issues emerge. First-time attendee Prof. Hung Shu-fen (International Relations Center), identifying herself as nearing the “elderly” category, found the session rewarding and raised the problem of housing hoarding. Prof. Hsiao Nai-yi discussed spotting anomalies in the data—do older people really live in older homes? Dean Yang added that sometimes we find data for an issue, other times an issue for data, and urged faculty to propose topics and push for data openness. Prof. Lin Shih-yuan (Land Economics) echoed this, seeking finer-grained information. Emeritus Prof. Kuan Ping-yin raised “household consolidation” questions; Prof. Chiang noted these remain unresolved and might incorporate education level. Prof. Lo Kuang-ta (Finance) suggested adding fiscal data, while Prof. Tsai Pei-yuan (Social Work) asked about household data access and the issue of solitary seniors—an angle, Prof. Chiang said, that sociology could explore.
This was the third Brown Bag Talk; each session sparks livelier debate. Dean Yang concluded that as topics grow from data, faculty should keep seeking necessary information and request access through NDC channels, deepening academic exchange. She likened the talk to a wishing well and invited everyone to share ideas—there are many more issues the series can address.
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Original article (NCCU Campus News)
