Conclusion: Confucianism or Gender Equality?

Abstract

We have asked about gender assumptions in welfare states that are very different from Western ones, trying to understand women’s experience of welfare states across a range of East Asian countries. Are the welfare systems of Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Japan distinctive, with Confucian cultural assumptions hidden beneath the surface commitment to gender equality? While economies, demographies and families have been developing rapidly, are social policies becoming less traditional in their expectations of women? How different are East Asian welfare states in their assumptions about gender from Western welfare states? And how different are they from each other, in the context of varied national policies about Confucianism, from the powerful attack on Confucian gender inequalities under Chinese communism to the embrace of Confucianism under the national governments of Korea and Taiwan? What has been the impact of policies in China, designed to replace Confucian traditions, through the communist period, and of more recent free-market-based policies? Communism had a profound effect, particularly in bringing women into education and paid employment. But what assumptions now underpin social policies, and how are they experienced in practice?