The female labor participation rate in Taiwan could break the 50-percent mark for 2011, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has forecast.
This means one in two women aged 15 years old or above was working or seeking work.
DGBAS officials said the female labor participation rate has risen about 10 percentage points since 1980.
According to the officials, the female labor participation rate hit 50.25 percent in July of last year before briefly dipping to 49.94 percent in October.
The rate stood at over 50 percent for four of the months in the second half of 2010, clearly indicating that the trend is fixed, they said.
However, tallies show that a gap still exists between men’s and women’s incomes. The DGBAS said the average monthly salary for females for the first 10 months of 2010 stood at NT$39,663 (US$1,306), or about 80 percent of the average salary for males, which amounted to NT$49,486 for the same period.
Hsin Ping-lung, an assistant professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, said with education levels among women in Taiwan on the rise and with an evident decline in birth rates, the female labor participation rate is “bound to break the 50-percent mark sooner or later.”
Nevertheless, he pointed out that an increase in labor participation rate does not necessarily translate into a corresponding rise in average salaries.
Hsin noted that most of the big increases in employment opportunities domestically over the past 10 years have been in relatively low-paying service industries, such as the restaurant sector.
More women than men are willing to accept these types of jobs with longer working hours and lower salaries, he said. (SB)