Household composition, extended kinship and reproduction in Taiwan: 1973-1980.

Abstract

There has been a decrease in the proportion of young couples beginning married life in Taiwan living with the husbands parents and the period of coresidence has become shorter for members of recent cohorts. Nevertheless a large majority of couples still do begin married life living with the husbands parents and most parents live with at least 1 married son. Couples who do not live with the parents are usually linked to them by visiting and remittances. The persistence of traditional family forms is greater than expected in view of the very rapid pace of other social and economic changes and the almost universal practice of modern contraception. Traditional familial forms are especially prevalent among rural farm and less educated strata. The longer the period of extended coresidence the higher is desired and actual family size and the smaller the proportion using contraception for spacing. Data used is from the Taiwan KAP-V fertility survey based on a probability sample with 3816 respondents of all married couples in which the wife was between 20 and 39 years old in 1980. (authors modified)