Women's Access to and Participation in Higher Education in Taiwan: Structural and Cultural Constraints

Abstract

The first purpose of this study was to determine the extent of gender differences in access to and participation in higher education in Taiwan. Equal rights are guaranteed by Article 7 of the 1947 Constitution. There is also equal opportunity for girls and boys within the compulsory education system but gender differences show up at higher levels of education and particularly at the postgraduate level. The educational statistics of Taiwan show that women make up about 43 percent of the undergraduates, less than 33 percent of the postgraduates and about 13 percent of those awarded doctorates. A second purpose of the study was to find out whether the situation of women in higher education was generally understood. The study shows that gender differences in access to and participation in higher education were not widely known by those in the samples from whom information was sought. It is believed that the University Joint Entrance Examination, the gateway to university study, is gender neutral. The third and most important part of the study was to seek reasons for the gender differences in representation at the university level. Data on education and employment were collected from the Taiwan Educational Statistics and the Taiwan National Statistics. Published commentary on the position of women in Taiwan was collected. The literature on women in higher education in other countries was reviewed. Face-to-face interviews took place with a number of mature informants and a questionnaire was administered to 150 senior high school students and 150 university students taking different courses of study. Half of the students sampled were female. The student survey was carried out in three cities in Taiwan. Two main sets of factors influencing women's opportunities for higher education were identified. Structural barriers were defined as those within the educational system or influencing it. Cultural barriers were those arising from beliefs about women, expectations for their role in Taiwan society and practices which illustrated these. Structural barriers identified were; first, the influence of subject specialisation at or near the beginning of senior high school at about the age of sixteen. The result is that females cluster in the humanities courses. Second the decisions of the Manpower Planning Committee which, by determining the quotas for university places in the different subject areas, interacts with subject specialisation. There has been an expansion of university places in engineering but very few girls take a course which qualifies them to enter engineering. Changing subject specialisation is difficult and the study shows that the only students in the sample who had changed course moved from other courses to the humanities. Third, the practice of compensation in marks on the University Joint Entrance Examination for men who have completed army service operates to exclude some equally or better qualified women from a university education. Another possible structural barrier examined in the study was that son preference might mean that girls had less opportunity for being tutored for the University Joint Entrance Examination. This possibility was explored but not supported by the results of this study. The informants who were interviewed explained the difference in the representation of men and women in higher education mainly in terms of cultural expectations such as the need for young women to find a suitable husband, to marry in their twenties and to take on the responsibility for things within the home. The results from these interviews were built into the questions for the students. Students were asked a range of questions relating to both structural and cultural barriers and to their beliefs about women and women's role in Taiwan. The student sample was selected for the variables of gender, educational level and course of study. A saturated log-linear analysis of three dimensional contingency tables was performed to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in the questionnaire responses between the variables. On the whole students thought that male students perform better in the natural sciences and that female students are less able in these subjects. There was no evidence in the grades obtained by women students to support this idea. Amongst the beliefs for which there was a measure of agreement were that women should marry earlier than men, that there were occupations for which women were unsuited and that women should not be better qualified than their husbands. For married women with children family should take precedence over work outside the home Division of labour on the basis of gender both within the home and occupational segregation in the workplace is accepted by students. A gender timeline was constructed to show differences in the life cycles of men and women. This showed men giving army service while women do not. It also illustrated that timing of marriage and starting a family operates differentially for women and men. The study shows how cultural pressures on women in the private sphere interact with structural constraints in the public sphere. Feminist theories examined for their relevance to the findings of the study were drawn from liberal, socialist, radical, and poststructural feminist perspectives developed originally in Western countries. This study does not reveal a single cause for inequality in higher education such as a lack of motivation on the part of women but rather a complex set of systemic pressures. The pressure from the private sphere for women to marry, bear and care for children influences employment policies relating to married women. Occupational segregation interacts with subject specialisation. Subject specialisation interacts with constraints on university places. Postgraduate study comes at a time in women's lives when women are expected to marry and retire to the home. Patriarchal ideas include the belief that it is best for a woman to be less well qualified than her husband. Confucianism supports such ideas. It is concluded on the basis of this study that a dual systems theory in which patriarchy in the private sphere interacts with and contributes to patriarchy in the public sphere best explains why women experience barriers in access to and participation in higher education in Taiwan.