Factory Women in Taiwan

This study describes the first generation of working women in Taiwan, documenting their feelings about employment and addressing the effects of wage-earning on the status and lives of women in general. Although working women enjoy greater mobility and increased peer contact, the study proves that the changes they have experienced are brought about by being away from home, rather than by wage-earning itself. Wage-earning has not empowered women to influence family decisions, nor has it brightened their future options. The author demonstrates how factory work for young women becomes a new opportunity to meet already existing role expectations, and that the values on which role definitions are based have not been changed by the work experience.