Changing gender roles and changes in

family formation in Finland, India and east

Asia
Stuart Basten1,2
Yu-Hua Chen3
KONE Postdoctoral Researcher, Vestliitto
2 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Social Policy
and Intervention, University of Oxford
3Associate Professor, Population and Gender Studies
Center, National Taiwan University
1

The gender revolutions

Contraceptive revolution
Educational revolution
Work revolution

Role in household
decision making

Female empowerment

Education
Access to extrahousehold economic
opportunities
Opportunity cost of
children
Desired number of
children

Knowledge of
contraception

Likelihood of
contracepting

Fertility rates

Negative relationships
Education and
fertility
Income and
fertility
HDI and fertility

But an incomplete revolution?

1. Incomplete public revolutions

In many settings:
Female education poorer
Discrimination at home and at work
Social and cultural barriers to empowerment
Underinvestment in female opportunities
Womens value lower

Often in negative feedback with poor

economic growth and other development
issues

Consequences
High fertility and stalled
fertility decline in many
settings
Incursions of womens
(reproductive) rights and
opportunities
Violence against women
Sex selection bias
Abortions, infanticide
Squeeze on marriage

India

Source: Baochang Gu & Yong Cai. (2011). Fertility prospects in China. Expert Paper. No. 2011/14. Department of
Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division. United Nations.

2. Incomplete private revolutions

Even in the most developed countries,
changes in womens domestic roles have
not caught up with changes in their public
roles
Opportunity costs of childbearing

Education revolution
Korea: female tertiary enrolment rose from
20% in 1975 to 81% in 2005 (Tsuya et al.
2009)
70

Taiwan, 2009

60
50
40
% achieved tertiary education (2009)
30

Male
Female

20
10

Age group

Source: Manpower Survey Statistics, DGBAS, Executive Yuan.

Participation in labour force

New and growing opportunities
The life options of young women have widened
(Rindfuss et al. 2004)

Income inequality decreasing

Highly competitive economies and
governments high productivity and low wages
Relatively unforgiving of the divided loyalties
inherent in the effort to combine child-raising with
working (Jones et al. 2009)

The package of marital roles

Childbearing and rearing

Care for the elderly
The watchful gaze of the in-laws
Responsibility for educational success of
children
Including extra-curricular activities and cram
schools

Heavy household task load

Possible co-residence with parents-in-law

Reflected in trends
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0
4.0
TFR
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0

Taiwan
China
China, Hong Kong SAR
Japan
Republic of Korea
India
Singapore
Thailand

Japan - context

Source: Japan Time Use Survey 2005

A perfect storm?
Patriarchal, patrilineal tradition
Women expected to have very different
gendered roles in public and in private
History of age gap between husband and wife
Highly educated women: opportunity costs
at breaking point
Context for cross-border marriages?
MEN want to get married but just not to
Taiwanese women (and vice versa)

Men crucial to the future

Do we downgrade women, or update men?
No question!
The role of men in shaping the future of gender
roles and relations in Taiwan is tremendous
An under-researched topic world wide

Population policy, fertility and gender

equity
Question the fundamental link between
population policy and fertility
Rather familiar assumptions on spending
on family policy and child benefit and link
to increased fertility (many studies)
But is that the only answer?

France

NW Europe
Scandinavia

Italy and Spain

CEE

(Latvia)

(Germany)

Developed East Asia

Source: EUROSTAT Harmonised Time Use surveys, EUROSTAT fertility

database, Asia time use surveys, UN World Population Prospects 2010,
Taiwan DGBAS

Micro-level evidence from Finland

3
2
1
0

Desired family size

Study of Finnish males at Parity 0 and 1.

Desired family size and views on gender equity
(Division of household/childcare tasks, women in
public sphere etc)

Traditional

Egalitarian
Gender equity index
Source: (Rotkirch, Basten and Mietinnen 2010)

Micro-level evidence from Finland

Househusban
d model
Equal sharing
model

Half-and-half
model

Desired family size

Male
breadwinner
model

Traditional

Egalitarian
Gender equity index
Source: (Rotkirch, Basten and Mietinnen 2010)

Yemen,
Niger,
Afghanistan

Scandinavia

East Asia, S
and E Europe
GENDER
EQUITY
MISMATCH

Desired family size

Extrapolate up to national level?

Traditional

Egalitarian
Gender equity index

NW Europe

So what to do?
Clearly womens work should be made
more compatible with childbearing
Return to subsidy vs. reform
Broader social change required
Try to usher in more equal responsibilities
between women and men with respect to
childcare and housework

Finland, India and East Asia?

Gender is a thread that runs through
partnership- and family formation in each
of these regions
Attitudes towards gender equity among men
Women [and men] struggling to reconcile
work and family
Fundamental questions concerning gender
roles