Ethnic Distinction, Social Class, Income and Gender

The ethnic distinction in Taiwan, as examined by Gates, has strong effects on social class relationships in Taiwan. Gate’s explains in “Dependency and the Part-time Proletariat in Taiwan” that class is distinguished by a person’s level of education and ethnicity in Taiwan (387). Ethnicity, as described by Gates, in Taiwan is divided as Taiwanese and Mainlander (388). Despite that generally the social class divisions are thought to be of a Mainlander upper-class and a Taiwanese lower-class, this is not completely accurate as there are members of each ethnic group represented in each social class that Gates describes (388). So although there are members of each ethnic group in each social class, being part of one ethnic group still carries a certain connotation and skews popular conception of an exaggerated ethnic divide. A division is found though in two of the social classes described by Gates; members of the “petty bourgeoisie” are over-represented from Taiwanese natives and jobs considered to be “new middle-class” are occupied largely by Mainlanders (393).  So in a sense there is a correlation between the ethnicity and social class, and this may mean that people of one ethnicity have more opportunities than the other. But this divide between who gets jobs and how much people are paid in Taiwan is even more drastic when comparing gender. 

The focus of this week’s blog now turns, once again, to gender. The divisions witnessed in Gates’ research between ethnicities in Taiwan in reference to social class, despite the fact that people from both distinct ethnicities as described by Gates belong to each social class, is then divided into further subsections because of gender inequalities in the workplace. In Greenhalgh’s “De-Orientalizing the Chinese Family Firm” the author described family enterprises, which were meant to be beneficial for the family as a whole, in Taiwan and the gendered divide experienced in allocation of jobs and pay. In the family firms, the women studied by Greenhalgh often held one job for every two men employed and mostly occupied that did not offer potential advancement or professional development (761). Although the position of the woman in a family decided the type of job and pay she would receive, the lack of professional development was similar. Married women, especially the wives of the head of the family, received the better jobs sometimes dealing with managerial positions, while daughter’s in-law or unmarried daughters received lowering pay, less desirable jobs, often to do with production and being paid by piecework (761). In addition, women were given jobs more out of necessity more often than men, especially because there was a focus that women responsibilities were revolved around familial and reproductive obligations, not professional development or income (761). 

So, it seems that generally native Taiwanese and women, in the time frame that these articles were written, held less desirable, lower paying jobs, though a few exceptions were present. This finding seems almost typical for any country. But what is special about Taiwan, and in a way what these authors describe as “Chinese culture”, is the complex relationship between the native Taiwanese and the Mainlanders and the familial nature of business enterprise. The perceptions of how native Taiwanese and women are viewed in both articles seemed so strong that it seemed it would take many ideological changes to reach equality of opportunity for all. Although the Taiwanese National Statistics website reports that if a gender inequality index was made for Taiwan it would rank fourth place in the world and would be the highest in Asia (, an article in Taiwan Today reads “Taiwan remains on slow road to gender equality,” despite the implementation of the Gender Equality in Employment Act in 2001 (Ho, 2010). Apparently after many decades, much work needs to be done regarding gender equality, including income equality. 

Gates, Hill. 1979. “Dependency and the Part-time Proletariat in Taiwan.” Modern China 5 (3): 381-408.

Greenhalgh, Susan. 1994. “De-Orientalizing the Chinese Family Firm.” American Ethnologist 21 (4): 746-775.

Ho, C. (2010, March 26). Taiwan remains on slow road to gender equality. Taiwan Today. Retrieved from http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=96865&ctNode=428. 

What is the gender inequality index (GII)? What data does Taiwan have? Retrieved from http://eng.stat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=31070&ctNode=5710&mp=5.