Taiwan

Gender Equality in Taiwan

According to The China Post (2013) report “the United Nations' Gender Inequality Index (GII) and concluded that Taiwan has the second best score in the world. The main reason cited for the impressive result is that there are many female politicians in Taiwan.”

Over the past twenty years , Taiwan government has been working on introducing more legal frameworks to protect women in order to improve the gender inequality. It shows the world that Taiwan has no sign of slowing down to maintain gender equailty, there are substantial legislative progress toward gender equality introducted through out all these years.

Goldin (1995) points that "women are able to enter the labor market at different phases of economic transition depend on their education level and cultural values." Traditionally, women usually required to take over the domestic sphere in order to take up their babies and housework. However, as development continues in Taiwan, women have the right to receive more education and be equipped with different skills by different training program provided by government. This helpsed them to further participate in different sectors in the labour market, for example working as a white-collar employee.

Taiwan's Government Enhance Gender Equailty in Workplace.

It is observed that the labor force participation rate of women in Taiwan has been steadily increasing in the past decade. In the 1960s- 1970s, most women were preferred to be hired because the employers could pay less salary to them than men. By the 1980s, women's participation in Taiwan's labour market has changed substantially. As the Taiwan's government sought for the potential of women in the labor force, women were able to receive more training provided by the governmen. Since then, women were encouraged to make part- time work arrangements.

According to the Taiwan Info (2011), it has recorded that "In 2002, the Gender Equality in Employment Act was promulgated with the goal of preventing discrimination in the workplace. Revisions to the Civil Code establishing the right of married women to retain control of their own property were also made in 2002. The year 2004 saw the passage of the Gender Equity Education Act, which is aimed at providing educational resources on gender matters, while the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act was promulgated in 2005 to give women legal protection from verbal and psychological abuse." In the past few decades, it is observed that the Taiwan's governemnt is trying to provide training program for the women to equip themselves in order to increase the women's competitity and provide the job mobility in the market as they received higher education. Also, the government tried to introduce policy to ensure women can work under a comfortable work environment, which protect them from different types of abuse. It does help to enhance the gender equality in the workplace, which Taiwan is named as the second high of gender equality country in Asia.

Gender Inequality in Taiwan's Workplace

Even thought the participation of women in the labor market is getting more and more, there is still an uneven distribution of the job participation, which make women cannot gain as much as men gain. In the labor market, it is reported that men occupy most of the administrative management position and technique skill position, which have a higher pay offer, while women usually participate in the service sector position, which pay them with a lower salary.

According to the survey carried out by the Economic Research Centre on Globalization of TsingHua University in 2009, women were reported that their average monthly gain was US$1917, whereas men average gain US$2086 per month, which showed that men can gain US$169 more than women. It is obvious that even women received higher education, there is not direct relation show that education could help women to gain more earning from the labor market.

Although the Taiwan government has introduced different policies to improve the gender inequality, it does not help much to improve the gender’s job participation in labor market. According to Cheng and Wang (2009), she pointed out that the labor market exist gender discrimination to women as most employees think that the productivity of women is less than men can produce, so women had less chance to get a promotion opportunity in order to gain more income.

Economic Growth Trend in Taiwan

By reviewing Bertelsmann's research (2012) carried out about Taiwan. It was reported "Taiwan was hit by the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, causing its economic growth fall from high levels in the 2007 with 5.98% growth to the negative growth in 2009 (-1.91%)." However, it also recorded that there was more than 10% economic growth in 2010 but growth fell to 1.3% in 2012 because of softening global demand. By observeing the general trend of the economic growth in Taiwan, there is unable grow and fall by time to time. By deeply anyalize the reason behind the dramatic situation, it can be contribute to its expert trading.

The electronic engineering industry is well-known in Taiwan. There are lots of electronic products produced in Taiwan. China, US and Japan have tight export connection with the Taiwan, which helps to gain hugh profit. As the economic crisis happened in 2008-09, it brought the butterfly effect to Taiwan's econocy, as US was affected the most. Most of the private companies were facing economic crisis which could not continue doing business with other. And this direct discourage the trading with Taiwan, which lead to the decline of the economic growth in 2009. It shows that the Taiwan economic growth has a direct relationship with the foreign counties as they are trading partners. Either one party is in double, the other one will be affected.

Although the government have pay attention in improving the gender inequality in the labor market, it does help the women to participate in the workplace, but it does not help to contribute much to the GDP of Taiwan because it is likely related to the forgein economic situation. Once the forgein economocy is facing crisis, Taiwan will be suffered.

Reference:

Bertelsmann (2012) "BTI 2012 | Taiwan Country Report", available at "http://www.bti-project.de/laendergutachten/aso/twn/2012/", accessed at 15th November, 2013

Cheng, Jennjou. Wang, Tzu-I (2009) " Gender Discrimination Among Taiwanese Top Executives ", available at http://paa2009.princeton.edu/papers/90895", accessed at 15th November, 2013.

The China Post (2013) "Taiwan gender equality ranked 2nd globally due to political engagement: DGBAS", available at http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia-taiwan/2013/06/11/380930/Taiwan-gender.htm, accessed at 13th November, 2013.

Economic Research Centre on Globalization of TsingHua University (2009), "The Role of Industry in the Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from Taiwan", available at http://www.ercg.nthu.edu.tw/IIGWG_Taiwan_June29_2009_CEP_(2).pdf, accessed at 14th November, 2013

Goldin, Claudia (1995) "The U-Shaped Female Labor Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History,” in T. Paul Schultz, ed., Investment in Women’s Human Capital, University of Chicago Press Chicago and London 1995, pp. 61–90.

Taiwan Info. (2011) "Promoting Gender Parity", available at http://taiwaninfo.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=173617&CtNode=124&htx_TRCategory=&mp=4, accessed at 13th November, 2013.