1. SOSC 102 U Lecture Note 10 Gender and Work in East Asia Gender and Taiwan’s Development Chu Yin-wah in Chow, Ch. 3 Esther Ngan-ling Chow and Ray-may Hsung in Chow, Ch. 4

2. 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

3. Different impacts on gender and development in the four tigers (2) 2. Economic restructuring from the 1980s impacted on women of these four countries differently – Hong Kong: Women between 50 and 64 years of age were moving out of labor market. – Taiwan, S’pore and S. Korea: women of the same age category were increasingly their involvement in paid employment

4. 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

5. Why were the Hong Kong women in manufacturing sector affected most severely from economic restructuring? Explain the differences (2) 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

6. Explain the differences (3) Government policies matter In the course of economic restructuring, the governments of Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea have devised strategies and injected resources to upgrade the technological levels and to maintain the viability of the manufacturing industries—these strategies have slowed down the speed with which manufacturing has withered and allowed a more gradual displacement of the labor-intensive industries and their workers The Hong Kong government has adopted a noninterventionist industrial policy and provided very limited industrial support

7. 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

8. Images on factory workers and sales

9. Gender and Development in Taiwan Case study on gender and work in transnational corporations (TNCs) in Taiwan Gender relations are embedded in the organizational structure, processes, and practices as a constitutive part—the Gendered Embodiment Perspective Organizations such as TNCs are not just places of production, they are also areas of reproducing gender ideology

10. 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

11. 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) 2. Male managers treat attractive and unattractive female workers differently—unattractive women are ignored 3. Women’s capacities for menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding, and child rearing are stigmatized and controlled