Family structures, filial piety, marital equality and women's employment in Taiwan (China)

Social science theorizing about the relationship between women's paid labor force participation and gender equality in the family has overwhelmingly assumed the model of the nuclear family household. In contrast to previous research, this dissertation examines how married couples cope with shifting gender relations in various intergenerational living arrangements. It proposes that the degree to which married women's paid employment reduces marital inequality in the family depends on the nature and character of intergenerational relations.; The quantitative analyses are based on results of regression models of the 1996 East Asian Social Survey---a probability sample of 2,831 respondents interviewed in 1996 in Taiwan. The analyses show that explanatory models based on couple-level characteristics---such as relative resources, time availability, and gender ideology---have weaker explanatory power for couples in patrilocal households than for those in nuclear households. Supplementary data collected through 37 semi-structured in-depth personal interviews with married couples from Taiwan are employed to suggest that there is a primacy of intergenerational dynamics in extended households.; On the one hand, this study finds that even when a married woman is employed, when there is patrilocal residence, "filial piety" is such a deep-seated cultural value that it will undermine gender role transformation in the family. Married men in patrilocal and matrilocal households seem to be similarly divorced from issues of housework and childcare. Even when married women are employed, interventions by the senior generation undercut these women's decision-making power in patrilocal households. On the other hand, the senior generation in extended households is perceived as ensuing an ethically superior environment for the children of the younger generation. Thus, this dissertation concludes that while women's employment is more effective at reducing marital inequality in nuclear households than in extended households, the absence of the older generation in the nuclear households compromises the nurturing of the future generation. By contrasting gender dynamics in different households in a non-Western society, this research attempts to advance scientific understanding of the intricately intertwined nature of gender inequality, culture, economic dependency, and intergenerational relations.