The industrial work force of young women in Taiwan

Abstract

Young women's participation in industry in Taiwan has increased phenomenally since the mid- 1960s due to the development of light industry for export, notably the textile and electronics industries. The number of women employed as workers in manufacturing increased 3.2 times in the decade 1965 to 1974, while the total population of women over 15 years of age increased 37.5 percent. Table 1 shows the shift in employment by age category, from 1965 to 1977. Most notably, the percentage of employed young women occupied in manufacturing has nearly tripled, and the average age of women in agriculture has increased by almost six years. Of course as the large cohorts born in the early 1950s reached their teens and early twenties, the numbers of young women available for employment swelled. This younger generation has received education of at least primary school level, and a majority have also completed also junior or senior high school; employment as a salaried worker in industry or commerce after junior high school graduation has become a predominant life pattern for young women. In contrast, most women of the previous generation received primary or less education, and now remain in farm households, in family businesses, in petty own-account sales, or do putting-out work such as knitting and finishing while they care for their families. The modern occupations of unmarried women are most succinctly shown in data from the island-wide sample survey carried out by the Taiwan Provincial Family Planning Institute in late 1971. Although the sample included women aged 18 to 29, 90 percent of the unmarried women were under 23 years old (Table 2).