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Gender & Work in East Asia: Comparative Analysis of Taiwan, HK, S. Korea, & Singapore, Slides of Psychology of Sex

This lecture note explores the impact of industrialization and economic restructuring on gender roles and labor force participation in taiwan, hong kong, south korea, and singapore. The reasons behind the different trends in manufacturing sector employment for men and women in each country, the effects of economic restructuring on women, and the role of government policies in shaping the labor market. Additionally, it examines the gendered nature of recruitment and labor processes in transnational corporations in taiwan.

Typology: Slides

2012/2013

Uploaded on 02/06/2013

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Lecture Note 10
Gender and Work in East Asia
Gender and Taiwan’s Development
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Lecture Note 10

Gender and Work in East Asia

Gender and Taiwan’s Development

Different impacts on gender and development in

the four tigers (1)

    1. Industrialization from the 1950s/1960s contributed to the increase in the overall female labor force participation rate. But the rates in the four countries were different
      • Up to the 1980s, the portion of women in manufacturing was higher than that of men in Hong Kong, S’pore, and Taiwan. While in South Korea, the portion of men in manufacturing was higher than that of women

Explain the differences (1)

    1. Why do men rather than women dominate South Korea’s

manufacturing sector?

  • Industrial development in South Korea from the mid-1960s was concentrated geographically in a few cities. Workers needed to make a long journey from countryside to these industrial cities so as to capture the expanding employment opportunities in industry. This worked against women because they are generally less geographically mobile
  • Hong Kong and S’pore are geographically compact, while Taiwan’s industries have tended to be dispersed widely in the western part of the island

Explain the differences (2)

  • Why were the Hong Kong women in manufacturing sector

affected most severely from economic restructuring?

 Hong Kong’s Economic Restructuring in the 1980s: the decline of labor-intensive manufactures, which had provided many job opportunities for women with low skills in the past decades; development of service sector from the 1980s

 The bulk of small- and medium-sized firm tried to reduce their costs of production by taking advantage of China’s open-door policy and transferring manufacturing production to Mainland China—this explains the drastic decline of Hong Kong’s female employment in manufacturing from the early 1980s

Explain the differences (4)

• Why didn’t the service sector create

enough employment to compensate for

the loss in the manufacturing sector?

 The service sector is looking for workers who

are young and with feminine demeanor and

basic literacy. Former factory women do not

fit the criteria—the structure of labor market

is gendered

Images on factory workers and sales

Recruitment of entry-level jobs for high school graduates: Female workers: young (above 16 years old) and single— sometimes “marriage ban” is applied (to agree to resign once getting married) No particular demand for male workers

Labor process: the absolute classification between men’s “stronger” vs. women’s “weaker” body—this concept determines different job assignments for male and female workers Lower-level positions: filled by internal succession and promotion. The average educational level of male workers was slightly above high school graduate and that of female workers was around high school—women sacrificed their education to work to support family and/or allow their brothers to have more education

Higher-level positions: filled by external recruitment of qualified personnel. Few women are in the rank. 1) a result of “homosocial reproduction” (male managers favored male workers to be promoted); 2) the “superwomen” (女強人) label

Sexuality and Labor Process

    1. The division of labor between male and female workers is

set up by the concept of gendered body (women’s “weaker”

body, women with nimble fingers, docility, and manual

dexterity—desirable traits for doing assembly-line jobs)

    1. Male managers treat attractive and unattractive female

workers differently—unattractive women are ignored

    1. Women’s capacities for menstruation, pregnancy,

childbirth, breast-feeding, and child rearing are stigmatized

and controlled