Jui-Chung Allen Li

Trends in the Employment of Married Mothers of Preschool-Aged Children in Taiwan

Using data from eleven waves of Women’s Marriage, Fertility, and Employment Survey, the authors examine trends in labor force participation among married mothers of preschool-aged children in Taiwan. The estimates indicate an upward period trend and an unexpected downward cohort trend. The results show that (1) changes in the population composition of women’s education and (2) changes in behavior for women of different levels of education, both associated with educational expansion, as well as (3) changes in economic opportunities in the labor market help explain the trends. However, changes in gendered family norms, as indicated by husband’s education, and changes in family composition factors, are largely independent of the trends. They also find that the unexpected cohort trend may be due to sample selection—women in recent birth cohorts who chose to marry and have children tend to be less committed to employment than their counterparts in earlier birth cohorts on whom the cultural constraints imposed greater pressure for them to stay home. They conclude that two major social changes—educational expansion, and industrial and economic developments—are associated with the increase in employment among married mothers of preschool-aged children in Taiwan from 1983 to 2006.

Budget Constraints and Son Preference in Educational Investment in Taiwan

This study examines the educational effects of sibship sex composition using data from the 2002 and 2007 Taiwan Social Change Survey. The results show that men with older siblings, especially older sisters, have higher educational attainment, while women with both younger sisters and younger brothers have lower educational attainment. Moreover, the positive effect of having an additional older sibling on men’s educational attainment only exists in large families but not small families. It interprets the findings as consistent with an indirect parental effect of intra-family transfer of resources, reflecting parents’ son preference in educational investment in their offspring; and that such a son preference is only present when the family is under budget constraints. Implications of these findings for trends in declining fertility and diminishing gender gap in educational attainment are discussed.

Personality, Affects, and Forgiving Behavior in Games

This study asks two research questions: who forgives, and how? Prior studies have shown that more agreeable and less neurotic people have a higher tendency to forgive others, but this study argues that these associations may be spurious because these studies measure forgiveness as a disposition using self-reported questionnaires. This study shows how to combine two economic games to construct a behavioral measure of forgiveness. In the first game, the participants are unfairly mistreated; in the second game, it gives the participants an opportunity to either reciprocate the injustice, or to forgive. Based on a sample of 468 students in Grades 5, 7, and 11, the results show that agreeableness, but not neuroticism (nor extraversion, conscientiousness, openness), predicts forgiving behavior in games. While it is widely believed that forgiveness has an emotional component, affects only mediate the justice evaluation of an offer in the first game. Thus, it concludes that whether a participant forgives or not in the second game involves a cognitive decision.

Changing Educational Effects of Sibship Sex Composition in Taiwan

Abstract In this study, we examine the educational effects of sibship sex composition using data from the 2002 and 2007 waves of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (N = 11,608). The results show that men with older siblings, especially older sisters, have higher educational attainment, while women with younger siblings have lower educational attainment. Moreover, the positive effect of having an additional older sibling on educational attainment is only present among older cohorts and larger families, but not younger cohorts or smaller families. These results imply that parental son preference in educational investment among Taiwanese parents will likely disappear once social norms no longer support son preference, especially in the current low fertility context. Hence, we anticipate that the gender gap in educational attainment will continue to diminish.