It is no more the social norm that husbands function as the sole breadwinners while wives stay home to take care of the family. More and more women are joining the mainstream workforce, while some men are choosing to be the principal homemaker of the family. Such a change is reflected in both mentality and action. Although those who choose to be different still have to fight against traditional prejudices, the line between conventional notions of what a man and a woman should be and do has gradually blurred.
Equality lies in the idea that every individual has the right to select the way to pursue self-fulfillment; yet social expectations still account for some of the pressure behind such personal choices.While some women burn the candle at both ends for career and family, others ask why men do not have to meet this dilemma, nor work hard to achieve a balance.
According to a white paper recently released by the Council of Labor Affairs, only around forty-five percent of females in Taiwan have jobs, while the female labor participation rate is fifty-nine percent in the United States, fifty percent in both Japan and Singapore, and forty-eight percent in South Korea. Also, one third of Taiwan's working women quit their jobs because of marriage; among these, forty-four percent go back to work after an average of six years and three months.
In the meantime, the salary for female workers in Taiwan is much lower than that of their male counterparts. In 1993, women's income was only sixty-six percent that of men, although the percentage climbed to around seventy-two percent in 1997. This phenomenon is suggestive of the ideology that views female human resources and the money earned by women as "supplementary"--in other words, they are cheaper and can be deprived anytime.
The government, however, has started to promote gender equality in the workplace. The Cabinet passed an equal working rights draft bill on March 4 to show its determination to eradicate workplace discrimination against women. Under the proposal, there should be no gender bias in recruitment, salary, placement, promotion, on-the-job training, benefits, retirement or layoffs. While the proposal needs to be reviewed and put into effect by the Legislature, career women are expressing their own views on the issues, and how they feel about their jobs.