Women’s Greater Independence from Family? Change and Stability in the Social Determinants of Wives’ Labor Force Exit in Taiwan

Labor force exit is often regarded as a negative sign for future career development. Although it is widely known that married women in East Asia are more likely to leave the labor force (temporarily or permanently) for family reasons, it is unclear how this tendency changes over time or whether family effects remain persistently strong. Taking advantage of the short-panel datasets of Manpower Utilization Quasi-Longitudinal Data (MUQLD) in Taiwan, this study explores how individual and household factors affect married women’s labor force exit and whether these effects change over time. Our analysis of couple data yields several conclusions. First, women’s earning capability becomes increasingly important for work decisions: the more a woman earns, the less likely she is to quit her job. This effect has grown significantly in the past two decades. Second, the husband’s earning has no effect on the wife’s work decisions. Third, childbirth increases the likelihood that the woman will exit the labor force. The effect of childbirth remained stable and strong from the 1990s until recent years, when the effect grew significantly more pronounced. Our findings are seemingly contradictory in the sense that women are growing both more independent from and more dependent on family. We surmise that changes in parenting culture might be the driving force behind this recent trend.