Wei-hsin Yu

Changes in women’s postmarital employment in Japan and Taiwan

Research on female labor-force participation has not fully explained why economic development has different effects on married women’s employment continuity across societies. I use life-history data from nationally representative samples of women in Japan and Taiwan to examine the divergence in women’s patterns of labor-force exit in these two countries during the postwar period. The findings reveal that the effects of family demands, occupation, firm size, and employment sector on women’s exit rates differed substantially between Japan and Taiwan. Taken together, these factors account for the different trends in married women’s employment during this period. I argue that the cross-national differences in the predictors of women’s labor-force withdrawal reflect the extent of incompatibility between work and family responsibilities for married women in these two societies.

Jobs for Mothers: Married Women's Labor Force Reentry and Part-Time, Temporary Employment in Japan

This paper explains the increase in middle-aged women reentering the labor force in Japan and their concentration in part-time or temporary employment. Existing explanations attribute womens concentration in part-time employment too narrowly to supply or demand factors. In Japan, both the labor supply of middle-aged women and the demand for part-time workers have increased, but these conditions channel middle-aged women into part-time or temporary employment only when systematic barriers obstruct their access to full-time jobs. Because it plays an important role in womens employment decisions, the rigidity of standard, full-time employment needs greater attention in studies of nonstandard, atypical types of work.

NATIONAL CONTEXTS AND DYNAMICS OF MARRIED WOMEN's EMPLOYMENT REENTRY: The Cases of Japan and Taiwan

Previous research has paid little attention to how the national context shapes womens work trajectories. In this study, I examine the rate of married womens labor force reentry in Japan and Taiwan, using event history data constructed from the 1995 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) Survey for the former and the 1996 Social Change (SC) Survey for the latter. The analysis reveals that Japanese womens timing of reentry reflects changes in their family roles, independent of the duration of work interruption. By contrast, the processes of Taiwanese womens employment return are less closely tied to family stages, but show patterns of duration dependence. These findings indicate that national contexts impact the dynamics of womens labor force reentry after marriage because of their differences in work–family conflict and the time sensitivity of the cost of nonemployment. These contextual differences also influence the effects of other determinants of womens rate of return, including education, husbands income potential, work commitment, and previous job experiences.

The Motherhood Wage Penalty by Work Conditions: How Do Occupational Characteristics Hinder or Empower Mothers?

Mothers are shown to receive lower wages than childless women across industrial countries. Although research on mothers’ wage disadvantage has noted that the extent of this disadvantage is not universal among mothers, it has paid relatively little attention to how the structural characteristics of jobs moderate the price women pay for motherhood. Using data from 16 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that began in 1997, we examine how the pay gap between mothers and non-mothers varies by occupational characteristics. Deriving hypotheses from three prominent explanations for the motherhood wage penalty—stressing work-family conflict and job performance, compensating differentials, and employer discrimination, respectively—we test whether this penalty changes with an occupation’s exposure to hazardous conditions, schedule regularity, required on-the-job training, competitiveness, level of autonomy, and emphasis on teamwork. Results from fixed-effects models show that the wage reduction for each child is less in occupations with greater autonomy and lower teamwork requirements. Moreover, mothers encounter a smaller penalty when their occupations impose less competitive pressure. On the whole, these findings are consistent with the model focusing on job strain and work-family conflict, adding evidence to the importance of improving job conditions to alleviate work-family conflict.

Explaining the Effect of Parent-Child Coresidence on Marriage Formation: The Case of Japan

Many single adult children in countries around the world live with their parents. Such coresidence has been thought to delay the transition to first marriage, although the exact reasons for the delay have not been sufficiently examined. Using panel data from Japan, we investigate whether changes in never-married adults’ residential status lead to alterations in their marital aspirations, courtship behaviors, romantic opportunities, and perceived obstacles to marrying. Our estimation of fixed-effects models helps address potential bias caused by single individuals’ selection into living in the parental home. The analysis indicates that living with parents is associated with a lower probability of forming romantic relationships, thereby decelerating the transition to first marriage. The never-married, however, do not desire marriage less, put less effort into finding romantic partners, or have fewer opportunities to meet potential partners when coresiding with parents. Overall, the findings suggest that living in the parental home increases never-married men’s contentment with their immediate social environment, whereas it decreases women’s psychological readiness to transition into adult roles, making both men and women less eager to settle into a romantic relationship.

Tradeoff or Winner Take All? Relationships between Job Security and Earnings in 32 Countries

Whereas some researchers suggest that workers face a tradeoff between job security and earnings, others imply that low earnings and high unemployment risks tend to accompany each other. Despite the contradictory views, direct evidence on whether, holding skill levels constant, insecure jobs pay more—or less—is lacking. Equally lacking is an understanding of how the national context may condition the way in which job security is associated with earnings. Using cross-national data from the International Social Survey Programme, this study examines the association between self-reported job security and earnings. Results indicate that jobs perceived to be more secure unequivocally pay more. The positive association between job security and earnings remains even after controlling an extensive set of job and individual characteristics, including detailed occupational categories, possession of irreplaceable skills, and risk-related personality traits. Furthermore, this positive association is universal; it is found within different employment sectors and occupations, as well as for both men and women. Although workers who perceive themselves as having lower risks of job loss generally earn more, they earn especially more in countries with higher unemployment rates and greater income inequality. Within Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, however, the earnings gap between those with secure and insecure jobs is smaller when the unemployment benefits replace a greater amount of the earnings prior to the job loss.

CRIME, FEAR, AND MENTAL HEALTH IN MEXICO†

This article examines the effect of exposure to criminal violence on fear of crime and mental health in Mexico, a country that has experienced a dramatic rise in violent events resulting from the operation of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Data are drawn from more than 30,000 respondents to a national longitudinal survey of Mexican households. We use fixed-effects models which allow us to control for time-invariant individual and municipal characteristics affecting both exposure to violence and mental health. The results indicate a substantial increase in fear and psychological distress for individuals living in communities that suffered a rise in the local homicide rate even when exposure to other forms of victimization and more personal experiences with crime are taken into account. Because DTO killings occur in response to factors external to a specific neighborhood, they generate fear and psychological distress at a larger geographical scale. They also seem to create a generalized sense of insecurity, leading to increased fear of other types of crimes. We examine the effect of large surges in homicide and the presence of military and paramilitary groups combatting DTOs as these conditions may approximate those in conflict zones elsewhere in the world. We also explore differences in the relative sensitivity to homicide rates between sociodemographic groups.

Occupational sex composition, cultural contexts and social capital formation

Introduction 1. Social Capital in a Comparative Perspective Nan Lin, Yang-chih Fu and Chih-jou Jay Chen Part I: Measuring Social Capital 2. Contact Status and Finding a Job: Validation and Extension Nan Lin, Hang Young Lee and Dan Ao 3. Homophily and Heterophily in the Position-Generated Networks in the U.S. and China Dan Ao 4. Status-Based Differential Memory and Measurement of Social Capital: Recall Errors and Bias Estimates Kuo-Hsien Su and Nan Lin Part II: Endogeneity of Social Capital: Structural and Network Features 5. Similarities and Differences in Relation-Specific Social Resources Among Three Societies: Taiwan, China and the United States Ray-May Hsung and Ronald L. Breiger 6. How Social Capital Changes During Ones Current Job: Work Conditions and Contact Patterns Yang-chih Fu, Ray May Hsung and Szu-Ying Lee 7. Occupational Sex Composition, Cultural Contexts, and Social Capital Formation: Cases of the United States and Taiwan Wei-hsin Yu and Chi-Tsun Chiu 8. The Internet Implications for Social Capital: Stock, Changes, and Tie Strength Wenhong Chen Part III: Accessing and Mobilizing Social Capital: Institutional, Networking and Organizational Factors 9. Job Search Chains and Embedded Resources: A Comparative Analysis Among Taiwan, China and the US Chih-jou Jay Chen 10. Network and Contact Diversities in Race and Gender and Status Attainment in the United States Joonmo Son 11. The Road to Democracy: A Three-Society Comparison of Civic Network Structures Yanlong Zhang and Hang Young Lee Part IV: Social Capital and Well-Being 12. Social Capital in the Workplace and Health Disruptions: A Cross-National Investigation Steve McDonald, Feinian Chen and Martha Crowley 13. Bright and Dark Sides of Who You Know in the Evaluation of Well-Being: Social Capital and Life Satisfaction Across Three Societies Lijun Song Appendix I: Social Capital USA 2004 Telephone Interview Questionnaire. Appendix II: Sample Characters for U.S., Taiwan, and China 2004-2005 Social Capital Surveys.

Occupational sex composition, cultural contexts and social capital formation: Cases of the United States and Taiwan

Introduction 1. Social Capital in a Comparative Perspective Nan Lin, Yang-chih Fu and Chih-jou Jay Chen Part I: Measuring Social Capital 2. Contact Status and Finding a Job: Validation and Extension Nan Lin, Hang Young Lee and Dan Ao 3. Homophily and Heterophily in the Position-Generated Networks in the U.S. and China Dan Ao 4. Status-Based Differential Memory and Measurement of Social Capital: Recall Errors and Bias Estimates Kuo-Hsien Su and Nan Lin Part II: Endogeneity of Social Capital: Structural and Network Features 5. Similarities and Differences in Relation-Specific Social Resources Among Three Societies: Taiwan, China and the United States Ray-May Hsung and Ronald L. Breiger 6. How Social Capital Changes During Ones Current Job: Work Conditions and Contact Patterns Yang-chih Fu, Ray May Hsung and Szu-Ying Lee 7. Occupational Sex Composition, Cultural Contexts, and Social Capital Formation: Cases of the United States and Taiwan Wei-hsin Yu and Chi-Tsun Chiu 8. The Internet Implications for Social Capital: Stock, Changes, and Tie Strength Wenhong Chen Part III: Accessing and Mobilizing Social Capital: Institutional, Networking and Organizational Factors 9. Job Search Chains and Embedded Resources: A Comparative Analysis Among Taiwan, China and the US Chih-jou Jay Chen 10. Network and Contact Diversities in Race and Gender and Status Attainment in the United States Joonmo Son 11. The Road to Democracy: A Three-Society Comparison of Civic Network Structures Yanlong Zhang and Hang Young Lee Part IV: Social Capital and Well-Being 12. Social Capital in the Workplace and Health Disruptions: A Cross-National Investigation Steve McDonald, Feinian Chen and Martha Crowley 13. Bright and Dark Sides of Who You Know in the Evaluation of Well-Being: Social Capital and Life Satisfaction Across Three Societies Lijun Song Appendix I: Social Capital USA 2004 Telephone Interview Questionnaire. Appendix II: Sample Characters for U.S., Taiwan, and China 2004-2005 Social Capital Surveys.