Lingering Male Breadwinner Norms as Predictors of Family Satisfaction and Marital Instability

Scholars have assumed that as gender revolutions are completed and societies achieve advanced levels of gender egalitarianism, married persons become happier, and marriages become stable. This study investigates how the norms about gender roles are associated with marital instability. The analysis is based on two propositions: (1) marital dissolution is an outcome of two rather distinct processes, deterioration of marital quality and formation of a decision to leave a marriage, and (2) the antithesis of advanced gender egalitarianism is a set of lingering male breadwinner norms, not gender inequality often manifested by working women performing second shifts. The data are from 68 national surveys conducted in 2002 and 2012 through ISSP coordination, and the sample of person-level analysis is restricted to ages 30-49, supposedly in the life cycle stages of family formation and expansion. The norms of gender roles are classified into four types: traditional norm, prescribing gendered division of labor; lingering male breadwinner norm, emphasizing men as the primary breadwinners while allowing flexibility of women's roles; super woman norm, prescribing women to perform double roles; and egalitarian norm, emphasizing equal sharing of roles. At the country level, aggregate variables were constructed by calculating the percentage of adults who held each type of norm. The results strongly support the prediction that the male breadwinner norm at the societal level is detrimental to marital quality, while persons holding the egalitarian norm are most satisfied with their family lives

Childrens Education, Intergenerational Support, And Elderly Parents Health in Taiwan

This study uses longitudinal data to examine how adult children's education and support patterns affect their elderly parents' health transitions in Taiwan, after controlling for various socioeconomic characteristics of the elderly. Although we are unable to completely eliminate the possibility of reverse causal influences or selectivity, we find evidence that adult children's education promotes good health among their elderly parents. The mean years of adult children's schooling decrease the incidence of disability among the functionally independent elderly at the baseline, and enhance recovery from disability among the disabled elderly at the baseline for the six-year interval that followed. Data suggest that these effects are created mainly when children share their nonmaterial resources, including knowledge about health and health care systems. We speculate that this association between children's education and elderly health is unique to social contexts with a tradition of extended family systems and current rapid economic growth; however this hypothesis needs further tests in diverse social contexts

Married Women's Employment in Rapidly Industrializing Societies: Examples from East Asia

A variety of explaantions have addressed the phenomenon of scular change in married women's employment in rapidly industrializing countries. These include theoretical frameworks that emphasize female labor supply, the conditions of labor demand, patriarchal values, the international division of labor, and the effects of export-led industrialization. This article examines two societies (South Korea and Taiwan) that showed considerable similarity in female labor supply conditions, female labor force participation, and cultural values 20 years ago but have since diverged in dramatic and puzzling ways. Using aggregate and microlevel data, this article shows that the emergent differences in married women's employment are best explained by the intersection of labor supply (similar in the two cases) and demand (markedly different). The article highlights the impact of government policy and foreign loan investment in shaping the nature of labor demand during rapid export-led industrialization in both countriesSociolog

Socioeconomic Determinants of Divorce/Separation in South Korea : A Focus on Wifes Current and Desired Employment Characteristics

The crude divorce rates increased substantially in Korea since the economic turmoil in 1997. How socioeconomic factors affect the probability of marital disruption is an important question but under-researched due to the lack of appropriate data. Using data from 6 waves of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study collected in 1998 through 2003, this study examines socioeconomic determinants of marital disruption, divorce or separation, highlighting wife's employment characteristics. Some findings are straightforward; long hours of working as paid employees are detrimental to marriage. Other findings reveal a complexity in the relationships between women's employment and marital instability. Wife's income may either decrease or increase marital instability, by different subgroups of employment circumstances. Also, marital problems seem to motivate wives to seek employment before the actual marital disruption. The results suggest that the relationship between married women's employment and divorce is contingent on other family circumstances. Lastly, husband's lifetime income may be more important than his current income, especially during the period of economic turmoil observed in the data

Gender Differences in Childrens Schooling during the Industrialization Period: Korea from 1965 to 1994

This paper focuses on gender differences in schooling by school types and levels from 1965 to 1994, and examines four hypotheses explaining the trends. The findings show that all four factors examined-income levels, labor market returns, educational policy, and family changes-are relevant in explaining gendered patterns of schooling. Labor market returns, especially these returns right after graduation, are particularly important in influencing patterns of female schooling. For example, over the past few decades, rates of employment within one year of graduation were high for vocational high schools and junior colleges, and those were the schools where female enrollment fared well compared to male enrollment. Meanwhile, the main force determining male schooling appears to be high returns to college education, unaffected by yearly fluctuations in employment prospects or industrial structure. i