While there are no definitive explanations for family disintegration in the ROC, most local experts point to a combination of factors they think might be working against the bonds of traditional matrimony. These include greater social pluralism, changes in moral attitudes, expanded career opportunities for women, and an overall selfishness in moderm human relationships.
To obtain a clearer picture of family interactions and the actual magnitude of the divorce phenomenon in the ROC, FCR invited three leading experts to discuss the origins of family instability and possible countermeasures before a young (and attentive) audience.
The participants were: Dr. Yi Chin-chun, who received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Minnesota and is now a research fellow at Academia Sinica; Professor Chai Sung-lin, who received his doctorate from the Institute of Social Management in Paris and currently teaches at National Chengchi University; and Dr. Chen Jeaw-mei, who received her Ph.D. in psychology from Indiana University, and teaches psychology at National Chengchi University.
The discussion touched on a variety of related topics, ranging from concepts of filial piety and financial independence to premarital sex and even public housing. Highlights follow:
Yi Chin-chun: Five basic types of family structure now exist on Taiwan. The first two are "extended" (or "complex") families: one has multiple nuclear families with three or more generations living under one roof, and the other, the so-called stem family, usually has two or three generations—children, parents, grandparents. The third type is the conventional, two-generation "nuclear" family household; the fourth is the "single-parent" household; and the fifth, which is simply a single individual, we choose to call a "single-person" household.
According to the 1983 Labor Force Survey, 54.1 percent of the households on Taiwan were nuclear, 23.6 percent were complex, 5.7 percent were single-parent households, and 12.4 percent were single-person households. The remaining fell into miscellaneous categories. I am most interested in the single-person household category, which consists of men or women living alone. I would assume that most of those single people have come to the city from the countryside to work or study, but I have no data yet to suggest exactly what proportion of the singles live in cities and what proportion live in rural areas.
Another important statistic is that 70 percent of all the aged people on Taiwan live with their children, which means the three-generation unit is still very pervasive. Experts predict that as the life expectancy of people in the ROC rises, the number of complex households will rise. But with more and more couples choosing to have fewer children, elderly people will find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having fewer or no choices in deciding which of their children to live with.
Sociologists say there may be a counterbalance to the trend, since studies indicate people with higher educational backgrounds and social status tend to prefer a strictly nuclear household. The elderly people of the future may very well dislike living with their children, especially if they possess the financial means to live independently. As a sociologist, I agree with this hypothesis.
Then there is the time-honored doctrine of filial piety in Chinese society. Deep-rooted as this tradition may be, the rapid social transformation our society is undergoing has changed the doctrine's contents and emphasis. Professors and students at National Taiwan University are studying the matter now. I personally predict it will be the parental generation that takes the initiative in modifying traditional concepts of filial piety. If the ROC manages to adopt a sound social welfare program in the future, there is no reason why financially-independent senior citizens should choose to live dependently on their off-spring, perhaps to face abuse or even exploitation.
The "dual-career" couple will be a crucial factor as well. When both husband and wife work, which is the case for about 40 percent of the married women on Taiwan, there are three important influences on family interaction. First, the husband must assume part of the housework load, an obligation men with higher educational backgrounds tend to accept less begrudgingly. Currently, the main housework obligation still falls on the working wife's shoulders, but that situation is slowly changing.
Second, the children must spend more time in the care of baby-sitters. According to a survey of working women in 1986, one third of the children in the Taipei area aged three and younger were being sent to baby-sitters for 24-hour care on weekdays. The parents have time for their progeny only on weekends.
Third, the traditional social roles assigned to families in the past are becoming impossible to fulfill. The Chinese have long admired a family that actively helped its neighbors and participated in local affairs. That attitude served as an important force in consolidating social stability. But now, with both husband and wife consumed by work, they have no time left to meet neighbors, friends, or relatives. Little or no interaction between families exists, which is bound to have substantial social effects sooner or later.
Chai Sung-lin: I would like to add something to what Dr. Yi mentioned about complex households. During the 2000 years from the Han Dynasty to the retrocession of Taiwan to China in 1945, the average number of persons per household held steady at about six to seven persons. According to the Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan Province now averages 4.2, and Taipei City averages 3.2.
The national average for Japan is currently 2.9 persons, and in the cities it is 2.4. Single-person households constitute about 22 percent of the total households in Japan, and that percentage has been increasing by ten percent every year for the last decade. Taiwan may not be as far along as Japan, but the trend is similar. As Professor Yi pointed out, the proportion of single-person households in the ROC is 12.4 percent, although I suspect the actual figure is much higher. Young people who come to the cities to work or study still register their domiciles in their hometowns, when they should actually be included in the single-person household category. I predict the size of individual households on Taiwan will continue to decline, but the actual number of households will rise faster than the population.
The functions of household units will also change drastically. In the past, a Chinese household took full responsibility for childbirth, employment, sickness, old age, and death. But the reduced size of Chinese families makes such a load of obligations impossible to support. Now many services and chores once performed by individual families are being provided by businesses. Career women with no time to cook must send their children out to eat.
For example, one highly profitable business on Taiwan is the "errand-running company." Customers pay a monthly fee of NT$2,000 (US$S6.00) for the firm to run up to 40 household errands per month.
The company sends someone to pick up children from school, to pay electricity or phone bills, buy bus or train tickets, or shop for food. The business is expanding because of a growing demand. This situation results from our outmoded social system which assumes every household contains a few members who do not work. Keep in mind that virtually all our major social institutions are open from nine to five—the average person's working hours. To meet actual demands, many of our conventional systems of social organization will have to change.
The tendency for many couples to have only one child also delivers a tremendous blow to the old social foundation. Many of the children today will have no brothers or sisters, and upon reaching adulthood will have no uncles, aunts, nieces, or nephews. Terms used now to describe such relationships may be archaic within a couple of generations. With no family ties to buffer individuals from the outside world, people will be directly dependent upon the government. This can be a serious problem if the government is not prepared to meet the new responsibilities.
Moreover, an only-child tends to be overprotected and spoiled, and less adept at interaction with others. If such self-centered children become the norm, current human relations might be transformed radically, a situation demanding new forms of ethics or morals.
Chen Jeaw-mei: Both Dr. Yi and Professor Chai have focused on changes in family structure and in the number of household members. I would like to suggest ways of coping with the problems generated by those phenomena. But before I begin I wish to call attention to three significant points.
First, the greater number of women actively involved in the work force has forced the division of housework to change, as well as the traditional husband-wife roles. Second, attitudes are changing toward male-female relationships, with more tolerance of extramarital affairs, cohabitation, and premarital sex. Third, as Dr. Chai stressed, we live in a time of egotism-the "Me-Generation" syndrome. Such a psychology weakens the basis for marriage. To add to the onslaught against matrimony, an extremely profitable and expanding sex business outside the home exerts its own force to push discontented couples even further apart. These matters are all quite important, and I want to address them in greater detail.
A survey conducted this April revealed that 42.26 percent of all women in the ROC are employed. Females are more financially independent as a result, and their status before their male counterparts has risen. No longer dependent upon a man for subsistence, the modern woman feels freer to express her true thoughts and feelings. This can be distressing to men who have traditionally regarded women as automatic subordinates. Self-confident men, with nothing in particular to prove, can usually accept a financially independent woman. But for a man who feels powerless in his public life, to lose power over his wife in private life often proves galling. Conflicts are inevitable.
But the blame for family instability does not fall on the man's shoulders exclusively. Some talented career women often sacrifice their families for a job. And even women who work simply to make ends meet will find their maternal and wifely energies drained. Some people attribute the growing divorce rate to this. A woman cannot instantly change her "professional" behavior upon arriving home any more effectively than a man can, and since a truly nurturing family atmosphere is something impossible to fake, the couple unavoidably draws apart. The consequences for the children are self-evident.
The fact that wives now work outside the home does not usually mean the housework is evenly divided with their husbands. The bulk of the housework remains the woman's responsibility in most cases, leading many working wives to complain of an overload. Research indicates that men with higher education are more likely to share a greater amount of the housework with their wives than less-educated men. Also, husbands who are praised by their wives for helping out at home are more likely to continue helping out. A little encouragement may go a long way in assisting men to overcome feelings of chagrin and humiliation over doing "woman's work."
Modern wives who do not hold outside jobs face problems of a different sort. They feel inferior to career women, and suffer frustration over a perceived lack of achievement in their lives. Personally, I regret this attitude. A housewife performs just as important a job, in the moral sense, as the career woman. And most working women cannot help feeling a bit guilty about neglecting their families. I know, because I am one of those working women, and being a "weekend parent" worries me. Domestic duties need to be socially respected as much as workbench duties.
None of these problems can be overcome without some give and take, and humans need the maturity to accept the consequences of their decisions. But in the process of decision-making, a supportive social environment is most helpful. Family, friends, colleagues, and of course the spouse can make a crucial diference by contributing some sincere encouragement.
"Who takes care of the children?" is a growing problem of "dual-career" families. Grandparents are a favored solution.
Another important way to cement a marriage is through deep communication between husband and wife, both verbally and emotionally. Also, it is destructive for married people to compare their spouses with other husbands or wives. Each person is an individual, and must be judged as such.
Nor is there any need to conform to narrowly-defined sex-role behavior. When a man refuses to show tenderness or understanding towards his wife and children, or when a woman fails to show decisiveness and courage in situations that demand those qualities, both communication and effectiveness suffer. Men and women must cultivate all their faculties, including those deemed by society to be appropriate only for the opposite sex. This will expand communication, and open new avenues of experience to married couples that can strengthen, not weaken family commitments.
Contemporary altitudes toward male-female relationships put pressure on the institution of marriage. College graduates in Taiwan were once thought very conservative in their sexual mores, and rather uninformed about sex in general. But recent unofficial surveys indicate 30 percent of college undergraduates live together with their lovers. This is a remarkable and sudden shift, and I wonder what kind of family life they will choose in the future.
Mercifully, society now tolerates divorce, which frees divorced people from the cruel traditional discrimination and humiliation they would once have had to suffer at the hands of family, friends, and society. But the dark side of the new attitude is that with divorce easier than ever before, couples show minimal effort in getting along together, and walk out on a marriage at the slightest provocation. Marriage has never been easy, and wedded bliss does not just magically spring into existence.
Success demands a degree of selflessness and altruism. To be married is to cooperate, not compete with a partner. But egotism and selfishness already assert their ugly presence in Taiwan's society. Under the guise of "individualism," people care less and less about the fate of others. Today, there exists a popular expression to describe the unmarried, uncommitted life-roughly translated as "single-noble". I find the term objectionable because it implies that a life alone is the best human choice, and anyone who marries is foolish. In today's context, the choice of a single life tends more to reflect self-centered ness than dedication to any higher ideal.
One popular lifestyle today is commonly called "married but separate lives". Couples decide to live together for a period of time, then apart for a while. They alternate the arrangement so as to enjoy the best of both worlds-the freedom of single life and the coziness of marriage. Such an arrangement has been popular among couples in Hong Kong for a long time, and is now gaining adherents on Taiwan. The "DINKS" concept, that is "double income and no kids," works in well with the married-separate trend.
But these tendencies attack the very foundation upon which marriage rests. Without children, sexual fidelity, or family ties, the idea of marriage looks artificial and irrational. But aside from undermining convention, I think the most unnerving aspect of these lifestyles is the utter self-centeredness they reflect.
My own feeling on the matter is that society must begin educating people to realize that happy marriages, as well as lives, in modern society require sacrifice and patience. We must stop encouraging premarital sex, cohabitation, test marriage, separated marriage, and the various other trends which I believe focus exclusively on individual interests while ignoring cooperation and social responsibility.
I also think we must teach people to restrain themselves from pursuing extra-marital love affairs, no matter how strong their feelings, since all parties usually end up losers as a result of such a liaison. When there are problems in a marriage, both sides ought to make a sincere effort to find the causes and work out solutions. This, I believe, is the mature approach.
Chai: I estimate that by the year 2000, the average number of people per household in the ROC will be about 3.6, and in the Taipei area about 2.9. The statistics will be close to those of Japan. Since parents tend more and more to prefer living alone rather than with their children, I believe the number of complex family households will not increase. And as women compete more in the labor market, and urbanization increases, the divorce rate will rise. On Taiwan last year, there was one divorce for every six marriages. By the year 2000, I predict the ratio will be one divorce for every 3.5 marriages. The rate of increase in the ROC last year was the highest in the world.
Yi: I agree that the rate of increase for divorce is very high, but we must remember that the actual divorce rate remains quite low when compared to places like the United States. As a sociologist, I am most concerned with the majority of the population. Many pressures are now changing family interactions and structures, yet I personally think the basic culture on Taiwan has remained unchanged. That fact is important in deciding on an appropriate course of action.
The government should playa role in addressing family instability, but the role should not extend beyond certain limits. Love is certainly not the government's responsibility. But professional counseling for troubled couples is one area where the government can be of help. Remember, we must think carefully before handing the state any power to interfere with our personal lives.
Chai: I can suggest one specific way the government might help. In Japan, the government has started to design and construct public housing that accommodates three generations comfortably, affording each household member a degree of privacy. Separate rooms are provided for the in-laws, the parents, and the children. The sizes of the rooms are equal, to curtail envy in the household. Public housing on Taiwan has until now been designed for no more than four or five people.
I would also like to urge the mass media of Taiwan to do society a favor. The overemphasis on sex in recent years has driven the importance of love into the background. People are being misled to believe sex alone offers an answer to all their emotional problems. I hope the mass media can make an effort to restore love to its rightful position in human experience.
I am not a pessimist. The things we have talked about do not have to lead to a nightmare. But we must remain aware of social changes so they do not catch us off guard. By taking judicious measures now, we can avoid having to confront calamity later.