Defamilization/familization measures and women's pension income—The case of Taiwan

Ruby C.M. Chau*, Liam Foster, Wai Kam YU, Yuk Pun Yu

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    3 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This paper examines how defamilization and familization measures can affect women's capacity to accumulate pension income and their subsequent standard of living after retirement. Firstly, it highlights the concepts of defamilization and familization and discusses the potential of these measures in assisting women to save pension income through the “commodification” and “decommodification” of labor. Secondly, it examines the major pension policies and examples of defamilization and familization measures in Taiwan. It shows how the current limited provision of such measures could create “double jeopardy” for women, affecting access to paid employment or resources to enable women who wish to undertake caring responsibilities to do so, ultimately impacting their capacity to accumulate pension income. Thirdly, it suggests ways to strengthen defamilization and familization measures in order to enable women to accumulate sufficient retirement income on the basis of three preconditions: policy attention to the reciprocal relationship between familization/defamilization measures and pension schemes for women; a recognition of differences between women in their preferred strategies to accumulate pension income; and an emphasis on a life course perspective to understand the double jeopardies faced by women in saving for retirement.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)116-123
    Number of pages8
    JournalAsian Social Work and Policy Review
    Volume11
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2017

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
    • Sociology and Political Science

    User-Defined Keywords

    • defamilization
    • familization
    • life course approach
    • pension income
    • Taiwan
    • women

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