This thesis examines the interplay between gender, family, and the Taiwanese public-sector labour market at national, local, and individual levels. It focuses on gendered occupational segregation, worker mobility in terms of job transfers and promotion, everyday work–life arrangements, and the influence of locality on workplace dynamics and individuals’ career moves. The public sector, especially that in East Asian countries, has long been regarded as a more women-friendly employer that promotes gender equality in the public sphere. Nonetheless, relevant research lacks a systematic investigation into the interplay of gender, social norms, and structured opportunities and constraints in this labour market. Therefore, I conducted this research by analysing governmental statistics and carrying out interviews. My research shows that gender segregation exists in the Taiwanese public sector and women are still underrepresented at senior levels, although the Taiwanese government has launched many measures to achieve gender equality in the public-sector labour market. It further scrutinises how the career trajectories of male and female civil servants differ because of gendered task assignment at work and gendered expectation after marriage, which restrain women’s mobility in spatial and career terms. Through the comparison of the experience of the civil servants working in three regions, I point out that locality influences the formation and function of social networks, work culture, and familial power relations. I also explain how local networking, work culture, and family relationships correlate with one another and thus implicitly influence the career development of male and female civil servants in the researched regions. In addition, my discussion looks at how extended family members influence household gender dynamics, which is seldom discussed in existing literature. There are three main findings in my research. First, prevalent gender norms in the wider societal context play an important role in the gendering process of civil servants’ career trajectories. Gendered investment in human capital contributes to gendered occupational choices and the tendency of men to start their civil service career at higher entry levels. Second, gender segregation exists in the assignment allocation, which is the result of prevalent gender stereotyping at work and in return reinforces the existing gender stereotypes. Third, the career plans of married civil servants, especially those with children, are highly determined by the interplay of gender dynamics at home and at work. Mothers tend to have the most limited career choices. Different family structures and local work cultures constitute diverse local settings for these mothers. In general, women who live close to or with their husbands’ extended families tend to prioritise their family commitments, although their extended family members provide them with resources and support, such as childcare. My research theorises back from the East Asian context to the literature on gender and families by unveiling multiple forms of patriarchy in different family structures, whereas previous Western-focused research has often focused on nuclear families. My research also suggests that the interlocking relationship between home and workplace gender relations and the influence of locality on these relations should be carefully considered during policy making and implementation.

This dissertation considers how the transition from craft manufacture to mechanized glass production affected the organization of work and the consequences for the recruitment of labour. Based on gender and ethnicity, the dissertation studies the composition of the workforce, the significance of qualifications, and differences in career paths and length of stay have been investigated at Surte glassworks 1943–1978. Charles Tilly’s theory of durable inequality is applied to analyse whether primarily gender and ethnicity had any effect on the assignment of tasks and on discrimination. In conclusion, the results from Surte are compared with conditions at Kosta glassworks. Whereas Surte’s specialty was machine-made bottles, Kosta was geared to craft production of utility glass and art glass. After mechanization at Surte, machine-tenders were counted among the most qualified category, instead of the glass-blowers who had previously been in demand. Manufacture at a pace regulated by machines led to more routine chores such as inspection and packaging. At Kosta, with its focus on craft, glass-blowers still had the highest positions and had learned glass-blowing in the traditional way through practical exercise. At neither Surte nor Kosta did women have any opportunity to receive comparable training. After the Second World War there was a growing need for labour at both Surte and Kosta, and to keep production going the main alternative was foreign labour. The peak was reached in the 1960s, and of roughly 660 collectively employed workers at Surte in November 1964, almost 40% were immigrants, chiefly from Finland. Kosta at the same time, with just under 330 employees, had slightly under 10% foreign workers, mainly from Greece. Kosta attracted a number of skilled glass-workers from abroad, but the majority of immigrants there, and all those at Surte, lacked experience of glass manufacture At neither Surte nor Kosta, with their different production methods, is there any evidence of durable inequality based on ethnicity. The assignment of tasks was guided rather by the functions in demand at the companies and by the applicants’ qualifications. Internal training and career opportunities were open to all male workers, regardless of which country they came from. On the other hand, the gender division of labour at both glassworks created durable inequality for all women regardless of nationality. / <p>Projektet delfinasierat av Kulturparken Småland.</p>

<p>The principal purpose of this thesis has been to analyse the importance of women´s waged work with handicrafts for the household economy in the Swedish countryside during a period of rapid industrialisation and growth. The point of departure for the analysis has been a theoretical and methodological frame of interpretation on three levels. The levels that have been studied are the national institutional level of society, the level of the local society and the household level.</p><p>This thesis has shown that women’s ways of providing for themselves cannot be explained with reference to any one factor. The explanation for the gender division of labour must be seen as the result of the interplay of several different factors on different levels. By investigating how the conditions for making a living looked like on the three different levels, the thesis has shown that, together, factors on the national institutional and the local societal levels, as well as on the individual household level, affected women’s work and how it can be understood.</p><p>The thesis has described how the ideal of the breadwinner has changed during the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. By studying a traditional form of female wage work – handicrafts – during a period when women were not expected to be gainfully employed, the thesis has shown that this transition was a slow process that manifested itself differently on different levels and that the old agrarian gender order survived for a long time despite the fact that people’s means of making a living had changed in a fundamental way. Women’s handicraft work was a continuing feature during this transitional period.</p>

The principal purpose of this thesis has been to analyse the importance of women´s waged work with handicrafts for the household economy in the Swedish countryside during a period of rapid industrialisation and growth. The point of departure for the analysis has been a theoretical and methodological frame of interpretation on three levels. The levels that have been studied are the national institutional level of society, the level of the local society and the household level. This thesis has shown that women’s ways of providing for themselves cannot be explained with reference to any one factor. The explanation for the gender division of labour must be seen as the result of the interplay of several different factors on different levels. By investigating how the conditions for making a living looked like on the three different levels, the thesis has shown that, together, factors on the national institutional and the local societal levels, as well as on the individual household level, affected women’s work and how it can be understood. The thesis has described how the ideal of the breadwinner has changed during the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. By studying a traditional form of female wage work – handicrafts – during a period when women were not expected to be gainfully employed, the thesis has shown that this transition was a slow process that manifested itself differently on different levels and that the old agrarian gender order survived for a long time despite the fact that people’s means of making a living had changed in a fundamental way. Women’s handicraft work was a continuing feature during this transitional period.

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies / One of the most pressing issues contributing to the persistence of gender inequality is the gendered division of domestic labour. Women still carry out more domestic labour than men. Housework is shared quite unequally among most married couples. Work performed directly in the service of families including housework and childcare is often unacknowledged all over the world because of cultural assumptions that a wife or mother should work in the privacy of the home. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couple negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. This study therefore seeks to discuss numerous variables that impact the division of household labour between men and women. This study suggests that patriarchal power structures seem to take a powerful and effective impact on the South African marriage institution, especially in the black communities. The study was therefore conducted in Schoemansdal village situated in Nkomazi region, Mpumalanga Province. To explore issues behind gender division of labour within households. The study embarked on a qualitative research design to collect and analyze the data. Samples of married men and married women were selected in this study. The findings of the study are as follows: Women do a disproportionate share of the housework, even when the women work and the men don‟t, and even when the women want to share the housework more equally. When men aren‟t working, they don‟t see domestic labour as a means of contributing. In fact, they double down and do less of it, since it challenges their masculinity. But when men earn more, women who are almost all working too, feel obliged to contribute in some way to maintaining the household, generally by cooking and cleaning. / NRF

在人口漸趨高齡化的社會中，高齡議題逐漸受到學術研究與政策實務界的關注，本研究則關心高齡志願服務場域的性別隔離現象。本研究企圖從性別的角度出發，探討高齡人口參與志工服務的經驗，探究傳統性別秩序是否在高齡志工領域中產生影響力，進而形成高齡志工領域中性別角色的再製。既有文獻多以女性志工為分析對象，鮮見男性志工的研究資料，因此本研究以台南市醫院志工與社區巡守隊志工為例，透過立意取樣蒐集來自男/女性高齡志工之深度訪談資料，嘗試分析高齡志願服務場域中是否存在水平與垂直之性別隔離現象，並探究其成因，旨在顯示傳統性別秩序是如何影響高齡志工領域性別秩序的建構。研究結果發現，不論是在以女性志工為主的醫院或者以男性志工為主的巡守隊，皆存在水平與垂直性別隔離現象。水平性別隔離現象顯示出男/女性志工或者出於己意或由服務單位所安排，男性志工多集中於體力、應變性質強、具保衛意義的工作上；而女性志工則多集中在情感關懷、家務勞動性質、溝通聯繫等相對單純的任務。水平性別隔離的成因和職場性別隔離之成因相仿，男性多被認為具有理想的勞動身體，以及豐富的社會經驗及膽識；女性則多被認為是需要受到保護、適合單純工作性質的族群。垂直性別隔離的現象尤為明顯；本研究發現，志工隊隊長一職由男性擔任居多，女性主要因為顧慮家庭及質疑自我能力而對領導職務產生退卻的態度而甚少擔任志工隊長。本研究結論為高齡志工領域中的確出現傳統性別分工秩序的再製。 / Ageing is a pressing issue in many societies that has attracted attentions from the academic circle and policy makers. Extensive studies have been conducted to discuss the issue from various perspectives. Few studies discuss from the gender perspective. With the case of volunteers in Tainan City and drawing upon theories about gender segregation, this study aims to critically examine the phenomenon of vertical and horizontal gender segregation in the field of elder voluntary services. Through literature review and in-depth interviews with 17 elder volunteers, female and male, from a hospital and community patrol team, this study seeks to answer the following questions: does gender segregation, vertical as well as horizontal, exist in the field of elder volunteering services? If it does, what are the main factors that contribute to the existence/ reproduction of the traditional gendered division of labour in this field? It is found that both vertical and horizontal gender segregation does exist. Female elder volunteers tend to take up those jobs that are thought to be ‘women’s jobs’ in hospital and community patrol team whilst male elder volunteers tend to do those jobs that are considered as suitable for men. Besides, both in the hospital and community patrol team, men are more confident than women to serve as leaders.

Since the 1980s, practically all of the western welfare states have developed social policies, which aim at shifting the responsibilities for welfare services from the state to the family, the civil society or to the market. In Sweden, this political transformation has particularly hit the public eldercare. In the last twenty years, the percentage of the population 65 years and older receiving public home help services in Sweden has decreased from 23 to 8 per cent at the same time as the number of beds in hospitalized eldercare has been heavily reduced. Moreover, during the course of the 2000s, the majority of the Swedish municipalities have reintroduced means testing of the eldercare based on whether the elderly have relatives or not that can perform the services. Parallel with these downsizes in the publicly financed and organized eldercare; privately produced eldercare services have increased, carried out by large and internationally own business corporations. Based on an theoretical framework, which combines the historical approach within the neo-institutional research tradition with a discursive method of analysis, this thesis explores if the period from the 1980s and onwards has been a formative moment in Swedish eldercare during which new ideas have become embedded in the institutional frameworks regulating the division of responsibility for eldercare services between the state, the family and the market. To examine if and how the municipalities, which are principally responsible for organizing and financing the public eldercare in Sweden, have implemented the change in ideas that have emerged in national politics since the 1980s, the thesis also examines how the eldercare has developed in two of Sweden’s municipalities since the 1980s. The results of the thesis demonstrates that the period from the 1980s and onwards has been a formative moment in the Swedish eldercare during which new ideas regarding the public responsibility for eldercare service have emerged and become institutionalized. Since the 1980s, senior citizens’ need for care has increasingly been re-interpreted from a public to a private issue with the consequence that today, their need for certain services, in particular those related to housework, are no longer regarded to be a public responsibility but a private matter that the elderly will have to solve, either by buying the services on the market, or, by asking relatives for help and assistance. The main problem connected with this reprivatization of senior citizens’ need for care is, however, that as the state has withdrawn its responsibility, women, in their role of being wives, daughters, or daughters-in-laws, have been forced to step in as informal and unpaid providers of care. Therefore, regardless of political reigns and modes of production, women have been forced to taken on an increasingly larger responsibility for their elderly relatives.

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