Fertility In Taiwan Research Articles

Work and fertility in Taiwan: how do women's and men's career sequences associate with fertility outcomes?

There has been much debate over the micro-level relationship between employment situations and fertility in Europe and Northern America. However, related research in East Asia is scant, although countries in this region have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Moreover, most studies analyse the employment-fertility relationship from a static perspective and only for women, which underemphasises life course dynamics and gender heterogeneity of employment careers and their fertility implications. Drawing on retrospective data from the 2017 Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), this study explores women's and men's career trajectories between ages 18 and 40 in Taiwan using sequence cluster analyses. It also examines how career variations associate with different timing and quantum of birth. Empirical results show that economically inactive women experience faster motherhood transitions and have more children by age 40 than women with stable full-time careers. For men, having an unstable career associates with slower fatherhood transitions and a lower number of children. For both genders, self-employed people are the earliest in parenthood transitions and have the highest number of children by midlife. Our findings demonstrate sharp gender contrasts in employment careers and their diversified fertility implications in low-fertility Taiwan.

Couples’ division of labor and fertility in Taiwan

The rise in women’s labor force participation is fundamentally changing the nature and intensity of domestic labor and increasing concerns about the prospects for fertility, particularly in gender-inegalitarian societies. To keep pace with these changes, the gender revolution perspective argues that increasing men’s involvement in the family will reduce burdens on women and facilitate fertility recuperation. This paper investigates the effect of labor sharing on fertility. Using ten waves of data from the Taiwanese Panel Study of Family Dynamics (8,863 couple-wave observations, 1,969 couples), latent class analysis was first used to define a division of labor typology, and mixed-effects models were subsequently estimated to investigate the associations between the division of labor arrangements and fertility behavior. Although the male-breadwinner model prevailed as the most conducive to childbearing, there is an urgent imperative to improve gender equality in domestic labor given the growing trend of dual-earner families. The results highlight the importance of considering couples’ paid and unpaid labor in relation to each other and suggest that gendered divisions of domestic labor have different implications on fertility depending on employment arrangements.

Declining fertility in Taiwan: the deterring impact of housework imbalance

ABSTRACT Fertility in Taiwan has been persistently low since 2003. Theorists have attributed this to gender inequity in domestic labour, yet this relationship has not been statistically tested. We assess the way in which the division of housework influences the probability of having an additional child. We assess this relationship for a sample of childbearing-aged married couples, as well as for education- and employment-specific subgroups. We find evidence of impacts for university-educated and working-mother couples, and when survey respondents are wives rather than husbands. The probability of a university-educated and working-mother couple with an equal division of housework having a child within five years is 0.73, whereas the probability of a couple with the mean division of housework having a child is 0.39. This finding is significant at the 1 per cent level.

First Report of 16SrII-V Phytoplasma Associated with Green Manure Soybean (Glycine max L.) in Taiwan.

QING PI DOU, a local variety of soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) with small seed size, is primarily cultivated in the southern region of Taiwan. Due to the advantage of high germination rate, fast growth and high nitrogen fixation capacity, QING PI DOU has widely used as green manure in rotation with rice to increase soil fertility in Taiwan. In the summer of 2020, phytoplasma-induced disease symptoms were observed in QING PI DOU with 23% (18/78) disease incidence in Yunlin County, Taiwan. These plants exhibited severe disease symptoms such as little leaf, yellowing, phyllody, virescence, and witches' broom compared to healthy plants. Leaf samples of the symptomatic plants were subsequently collected and examined through transmission electron microscopy (TEM), PCR, and western blotting analyses. The ultrathin sections of the diseased QING PI DOU were double-stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate. The typical phytoplasma-like pleomorphic bodies were observed in sieve elements of leaf veins by TEM. To investigate the association of phytoplasma with the diseased QING PI DOU, total DNA extracted by the Plant Genomic DNA Purification Kit (DP022, Genemark, Taiwan) was examined by nested PCR using the phytoplasma universal primer pair P1/P7 followed by R16F2n/R16R2 (Lee et al. 1993). The 1.2 kb PCR product specific for 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) gene was only amplified from symptomatic plants but not from healthy plants. BLAST analysis demonstrated that the sequence (accession no. MW393690) of amplified DNA fragment of 16S rRNA is identical to that of GenBank accession no. NZ_AMWZ01000008 (complement [31109 to 32640]) of peanut witches' broom (PnWB) phytoplasma, a 'Candidatus phytoplasma aurantifolia'-related strain (Firrao et al. 2004). Further analysis on the virtual RFLP pattern of MW393690 generated by iPhyClassifier confirmed that the phytoplasma identified in the diseased QING PI DOU can be classified into the 16SrII-V subgroup. Samples examined by nested PCR were further selected for total cell extracts preparation and characterized by western blotting using the polyclonal antibody raised against the immunodominant membrane protein (Imp) of PnWB phytoplasma (Chien et al. 2020). An expected signal of 19 kDa specific for Imp was only detected in symptomatic plants but not in healthy plants. Moreover, the PCR products encoding SAP11 and phyllogen, the virulence factors responsible for phytoplasma-induced witches' broom and phyllody symptoms (Namba 2019), were also amplified from symptomatic QING PI DOU by PCR using the primer pairs 5'-ATGGCTCCCGAAAAAAATGATAAAGG-3'/5'-TTTTTTAGAATCATCAGGCTTTTTAG-3' (0.28 kb) and 5'-ATGGATCCAAAACTTCCAGAAACT-3'/5'-GTTTTTTTCATCATTTAAATCAT-3' (0.27 kb), respectively. Further analysis by BLAST revealed that SAP11 and phyllogen identified in symptomatic QING PI DOU are identical with those of PnWB phytoplasma. To the best of our knowledge, this report is the first to describe phytoplasma-associated soybean (Glycine max L.) witches' broom disease in green manure soybean in Taiwan.

An Exploration of Individual, Familial, and Cultural Factors Associated with the Value of Children among Taiwanese Young Adults

Because of the extra-low fertility in Taiwan, much attention has been paid to the causal mechanisms accounting for childbearing intention and behavior. Despite the popularity of the economic approach in explaining the fall in fertility, social and psychological factors are still considered to affect young adults’ decisions upon marriage and parenthood. The varying values attached to children have been documented as crucial reasons for having or not having children. Hence, the main purposes of this study are to explore the meaning and dimensions of the value of children perceived by Taiwan’s youth adults and to investigate how the major dimensions of VOC were associated with socio-demographic, familial relational, and cultural-ideological factors. Data are taken from 2550 young people aged 30–33 years, a cohort sample from the Taiwan Youth Project collected in 2017. Through the factor analyses, two dimensions of VOC are extracted, with emotional VOC being valued more than instrumental VOC. The multivariate analyses indicate that the variations in emotional VOC and instrumental VOC are significantly related to individual characteristics, cultural and ideological factors. More importantly, this study demonstrates how elite education has intersected with gender in shaping young adults’ values that attribute to having children. Since the VOC gender gap widens as education selectivity rises, it could explain the tendency toward late and less family formation for better-educated Taiwanese women.

The impact of economic uncertainty on the decision of fertility: Evidence from Taiwan

Economic uncertainty has only recently begun to appear in research on the determinants of fertility. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how economic uncertainty affects the fertility rate in Taiwan. Official county-level panel data from 1998 to 2016 for 20 counties are utilized in DIFF-GMM and SYS-GMM models in dynamic panel regression estimation. The major finding of this study is that higher volatility of household disposable income will reduce the fertility rate. The empirical results support the proposition that economic uncertainty might be an important determinant of fertility decisions, explaining the decline in fertility in Taiwan.

Dysgenic fertility for intelligence and education in Taiwan

This study investigated the current trend of dysgenic fertility in Taiwan. Data on 680 adults aged 35 to 90years from the Taiwan WAIS-IV norming sample and 980 children aged 2.5 to 7years from the Taiwan WPPSI-IV norming sample were examined to investigate the relationships between intelligence, education, and fertility. Results revealed that education and intelligence were negatively correlated with fertility, and that the correlations were stronger for females. The genotypic intelligence is estimated to decline by approximately 1.19 IQ points per generation and the decline is much stronger for the younger adult cohort (1.46 IQ points) than for the older adult cohort (1.02 IQ points).

From the Guest Editor: A Special Issue for Asian Consumer and Family Economics Association (ACFEA)

This special section of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues has six papers originally presented at the Tenth Biennial Conference of Asian Consumer and Family Economics Association, held at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan in July of 2014. During the conference, more than 80 papers were presented with more than 120 scholars in attendance. After soliciting submissions from presenters at the conference and blind-peer reviewing process of excellent referees, only six articles were accepted for this Special Issue. Prior to getting into the details of each paper, I would like to say that this collection of papers is a must read if you are interested in frontier research in the area of family economics and consumer finance in Asia. As the guest editor, I tried to include papers that addressed family issues of current concern that also complemented each other in some way. I also tried to include consumer issues that are currently prevalent in Asia. Most research studying family financial behavior of racial/ethnic groups has ignored Asian households or arbitrarily combined them with other racial/ethnic groups. In the first paper, Hanna, Lee, and Lindamood treated Asian households as a separate racial/ethnic group and suggested that Asian households should be analyzed as a separate group and should not be combined with other racial/ethnic groups for comparison purposes. As the decreasing fertility rate has become a prevalent issue, in the second paper, Huang, Chiang, and Pan empirically explored the possible effect of crime on fertility and concluded that crime did have a significantly negative effect on fertility in Taiwan under consideration of spatial dependence of fertility rate, although the magnitude was modest. Moreover, as investment in the securities markets is vital to households’ wealth accumulation and financial security, the third paper by Yao and Xu provided insight into the long-term financial security of Chinese households and found that self-assessed investment knowledge and having a long-term financial plan were positively associated with Chinese households’ participation in the securities markets. In order to better comprehend the factors associated with family’s poverty dynamic status, Surachman and Hartoyo used a stratified random sample from four sub-districts in West Java, Indonesia to reveal that family of origin played an important role in determining the welfare status of individuals through parental investment in children’s human capital. With respect to household saving issue, Poon and Hon found that the disparities in the distribution of household savings in Hong Kong were more serious than disparities in household income or expenditures. Their analysis also revealed that the major household saving motive was ‘‘precautionary’’ and the key determinant of household savings was income, implying that the life-cycle hypothesis of savings could be applied in Hong Kong. In the last paper, Kim and Hong investigated the impact of catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) on life satisfaction in South Korea and concluded that the effect on life satisfaction of having CHE varied among the household groups, mainly in terms of income level and type of medical benefit programs. Households in the poverty-National Health Insurance (NHI) group exhibited much lower satisfaction compared to other groups when they experienced CHE. & Jr-Tsung Huang jthuang@nccu.edu.tw

The Social Risk of Low Fertility in Taiwan

This paper examines the low fertility phenomenon in Taiwan and argues that the low fertility problem can be identified as a type of new social risk. Existing studies on new social risks tend to focus on the social risks that have negative influences on individuals but ignore those that have more negative influences on the whole society than individuals, such as low fertility problem. This paper illustrates how the Taiwanese government recognises low fertility as a social risk and how such recognition facilitated the recent development of policies that support families and children.

Determinants of Female Fertility in Taiwan, 1966–2001: Empirical Evidence from Cointegration and Variance Decomposition Analysis*

This study investigates the determinants of the fertility rate in Taiwan over the period 1966–2001. Consistent with theory, the key explanatory variables in Taiwan's fertility model are real income, infant mortality rate, female education and female labor force participation rate. The test for cointegration is based on the recently developed bounds testing procedure while the long‐run and short‐run elasticities are based on the autoregressive distributed lag model. Among our key results, female education and female labor force participation rate are found to be the key determinants of fertility in Taiwan in the long run. The variance decom‐position analysis indicates that in the long run approximately 45percent of the variation in fertility is explained by the combined impact of female labor force participation, mortality and income, implying that socioeconomic development played an important role in the fertility transition in Taiwan. This result is consistent with the traditional structural hypothesis.

Below-replacement fertility and prospects for labour force growth in Taiwan

Fertility in Taiwan had declined to replacement level in 1983. In 1986-1997, the total fertility rate dropped to 1.7-1.8, with continuing decreases observed in 1997-2001. Fertility will probably be sustained at the 2001 level of 1.48 or even decline further in the future. If the current fertility and labour-force participation rates persist, the size of the labour force will increase only slightly in the next 15 years and begin to shrink soon after 2015. After 2034, the labour force will fall below the current level and Taiwan will face a labour shortage. Though efficient, the policy option of importing more foreign workers is fraught with political sensitivities, especially given the current economic downturn and rising unemployment. Another policy approach, to increase the participation rates for women and mature men, would lead to growth in the labour supply sometime after 2030 and, combined with a modest increase in fertility, would prevent the labour force from falling below its current size in the next 50 years. Notwithstanding that any increase in fertility will have a delayed effect on labour supply, strong incentives are still required to affect fertility behaviour.

Cointegration and causality between fertility and female labor participation in Taiwan: A multivariate approach

Applying Hsiao's version of Granger causality, this paper uncovers no causality from fertility to female labor participation and fails to find the expected relationship that female labor participation negatively predicts fertility in Taiwan. This indicates that working women in Taiwan do not necessarily have fewer children. The finding of this study contradicts the results obtained when using the conventional regression method which finds bidirectional relationship between fertility and female labor participation. In addition, this study detects that education exerts a great influence on female labor participation but not on fertility.

The effect of education on fertility in Taiwan: A time series analysis

Applying Hsiao's version of the Granger causality method, this study finds no causality from education to fertility in Taiwan. This finding is contrary to the results of several studies that used the regression method.

Evidence of increasing natural fertility in Taiwan.

A comparison of age-specific marital fertility experience of 3 successive birth cohorts in Taiwan (1921-25, 1926-30, and 1934-38) indicates that later cohorts have experienced progressively higher rates of natural fertility at each age from 15-19 to 35-39 years. Age-specific martial fertility for all 3 cohorts has been essentially natural up to ages 25-29 years, at which point it has become progressively more modified by deliberate fertility regulation. At ages 20-24 years, the 1934-38 cohort experienced 14% more fertility than the 1926-30 cohort and 20% more fertility than the 1921-25 cohort. This increase in natural fertility took place largely during the 1950s, a period of dramatic improvements in health, nutrition, and living conditions in Taiwan. However, the observed total marital fertility rate by age 35-39 years fell from 6.443 for the 1921-25 cohort to 6.154 for the 1926-30 cohort and 6.024 for the 1934-38 cohort, representing a decline in fertility of 4.5% between the 1st and 2nd cohorts and 6.5% between the 2nd and 3rd cohorts. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis of rising natural fertility in the early stages of modernization and the fertility transition as a result of improved health and nutrition and changes in lactation practices. It is only when the increase in natural fertility levels off and the practice of fertility regulation expands that a secular decline in fertility is observed.

Effects of changed contraception patterns on fertility in Taiwan: Applications of a non-Markovian stochastic model

Longitudinal data from Taiwan in the period 1963–1973 are used in an age-dependent non-Markovian Stochastic model of human reproduction to evaluate the effects of changing contraceptive technology and extended use patterns on fertility. The fertility experience of women claiming to be limiters up to the first unwanted pregnancy following acceptance of an IUD is considered. It is found that improved contraceptive technology, and especially changed switching patterns among methods, account for as much as a 50% decline in first pregnancy probabilities over the period studied.

The Transition from Natural to Controlled Fertility in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Demand and Supply Factors

Three factors are usually proposed as inducing the transition from natural to regulated fertility. Fertility regulation may occur when the demand for children is reduced; when general attitudes toward fertility regulaton become positive; and, finally, when such factors as infant and child survival prospects and natural fertility conditions improve. Applying the Easterlin framework for fertility determination, this paper considers the effect of these factors in the shift from natural to regulated fertility in Taiwan in 1965. Cross-sectional data for continuously married women aged 35-44 are used. The results indicate that, at the initial stages of the fertility transition, it is primarily an increase in the potential output of surviving children and a decline in the subjective costs associated with fertility regulation, rahter than a decline in desired fertility, that distinguish the natural fertility subpopulation from the regulating subpopulation.

The Relation of Income to Fertility Decisions in Taiwan

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Relation of Income to Fertility Decisions in TaiwanEva Mueller and Richard CohnEva Mueller Search for more articles by this author and Richard Cohn Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 25, Number 2Jan., 1977 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/450951 Views: 8Total views on this site Citations: 10Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1977 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Li Zhang, Dudley L. Poston, Chiung-Fang Chang Male and Female Fertility in Taiwan, (Oct 2013): 151–161.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7445-2_9Li Zhang, Dudley L. Poston, Michael S. Alvard, Christopher Cherry Cultural Inheritance and Fertility Outcomes: An Analysis from Evolutionary and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, International Journal of Population Research 2013 (Jan 2013): 1–10.https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/340719Li Zhang Male and Female Fertility in Taiwan: Trends and Transitions, 1975–2004, (Nov 2010): 57–79.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8939-7_5Li Zhang Demographic, Socioeconomic Characteristics, and Male and Female Fertiltiy, (Nov 2010): 83–116.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8939-7_6Li Zhang Cultural Inheritance and Male and Female Fertility, (Nov 2010): 177–192.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8939-7_9Jr-Tsung Huang, An-Pang Kao, Wen-Chuan Hung The Influence of College Tuition and Fees on Fertility Rate in Taiwan, Journal of Family and Economic Issues 27, no.44 (Sep 2006): 626–642.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-006-9037-4Jr-Tsung HUANG PERSONAL TAX EXEMPTION: THE EFFECT ON FERTILITY IN TAIWAN, The Developing Economies 40, no.11 (Mar 2007): 32–48.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1049.2002.tb00909.xEva C. Yen, Gili Yen, Ben-c. Liu Cultural and Family Effects on Fertility Decisions in Taiwan, R.O.C.: Traditional Values and Family Structure Are as Relevant as Income Measures, American Journal of Economics and Sociology 48, no.44 (Oct 1989): 415–426.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1989.tb02128.xC. Shannon Stokes, Yeu-Sheng Hsieh Female Employment and Reproductive Behavior in Taiwan, 1980, Demography 20, no.33 (Aug 1983): 313–331.https://doi.org/10.2307/2061245Darius J. Conger, David C. Luan Dynamic properties of Taiwanese fertility, 1950–1972, Studies In Comparative International Development 14, no.22 (Jun 1979): 54–74.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686478

Trends in Fertility and in the Effects of Education on Fertility in Taiwan, 1961-74

In this report Taiwans continuing fertility decline is brought up to date through 1974 and attention is given to the role of changing educational distributions in the fertility decline from 1966 to 1974. Between 1961-1974 Taiwans crude birthrate decreased from 37.7 to 23.4 a decline of 38%. The major cause of this decline was the decline in marital fertility. In comparing the 3 broad periods 1961-1965 1965-1970 and 1970-1974 the following trends become evident: 1) fertility decline was greatest in the most recent period as measured either by per annum decline in the standardized birthrate or by the total fertility rate; and 2) the fertility decline has shifted into younger ages. Education has been shown to have a strong relation to fertility marital status and other aspects of reproduction in Taiwan in the past. Although data is not available for the entire 1961 through 1974 period data are available on age-education specific fertility rates for 1966 1971 and 1974. It is learned that the educational distribution has changed within reproductive age groups for the period under review. For example among women aged 25-29 the proportion with less than primary education decreased from 48% to 21% while the percentage with senior high school education increased from 6% to 18% in the 1966-1974 period. The most important general statement that can be made about education-fertility data is that while structural changes in educational levels have had a significant effect in producing lower fertility in Taiwan the major effects come from changes in fertility within educational strata. It is particularly important that fertility has declined especially rapidly among the more poorly educated strata since these are a large if diminishing part of the Taiwan population. Data from other sources indicate that this pattern is consistent within all educational strata but especially among the poorly educated.

The Influence of Child Mortality on Fertility in Taiwan

Data were collected from women and 2 years later from many of their husbands to test 4 hypotheses about the positive effect of child mortality on fertility behavior in Taiwan. The experience of child mortality was not related to current contraceptive behavior but fear of child mortality resulted in a slightly less than average use of contraception. However experience of child mortality delays the initial use of contraception while fear of child mortality has little effect on the timing of the first use of contraception. The ideal number of children is higher for couples who express an expectation or fear of child mortality. Actual child mortality did not show a strong relationship with ideal family size.

Urbanization, non-familial work, education, and fertility in Taiwan

Abstract It is well known, that there is a relationship between the level of development of a society and its level offertility.(1) However, it is not clear which of the complex ofvariables associated with development are primarily associated with the reduction of fertility. Urbanization, female labour force participation and education are three of the variables most commonly cited as bearing a causal relationship to fertility. Urbanization implies a change of environment of a substantial portion of the population which may result in a change in the value placed on large families. This is particularly true when urban mortality is lower than rural, so that more children survive.(2) However, it has also been argued that urbanization results in a change in family structure from the extended to the nuclear family with a concomitant reduction in the value placed on having many children.(3) Additional changes in family patterns which are sometimes said to explain fertility reduction due to urbanization are increases in the proportion of women never marrying and increases in the age at marriage.