Sacrificing their careers to take on a caretaker role is not only unfair to women, but also a national loss, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, pledging to remove all hurdles to increase female participation in the workplace.
Speaking at an event in Taipei organized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to celebrate International Women’s Day, Tsai said that while women have demonstrated remarkable skills in various areas, they are constrained in the workplace because of insufficient government support.
As the burden of caregiving mostly falls on women, many feel compelled to give up their jobs to care for children or family members, Tsai said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Statistics show that the labor participation rate among women falls when they reach about 30 years old, presumably due to marriage.
“This is not only unfair to women, but is also a loss to the nation. That is why supporting and removing barriers to female employment is an important government policy,” Tsai said, who was last year elected as the nation’s first female president.
According to statistics compiled by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the labor participation rate for married men and women in 2015 stood at 70.5 percent and 49.6 percent respectively.
However, the labor participation rate for unmarried men and women during the same period was not as skewed — at 64.3 percent and 61.5 percent respectively.
Tsai said that the government last year amended the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) requiring companies with more than 100 employees to provide childcare facilities, while relaxing rules for government subsidies for smaller corporations planning to offer similar services to workers.
Other efforts include promoting the “long-term services care program 2.0” — which seeks to make quality long-term care accessible to more elderly and disadvantaged people — and easing the requirements for small loans to female entrepreneurs, Tsai said.
The government also plans to integrate different resources to help alleviate the everyday pressures of raising families to allow both parents to focus on their careers, Tsai said.
While it is imperative for the government to increase women’s labor participation rates, “allowing all women to be able to fulfill their dreams and make their fair share of contribution to social prosperity is the ultimate goal we should pursue behind those numbers,” Tsai said.
“To do that requires changing traditional social values and continued efforts from the government to instill the concept of gender mainstreaming in various policies,” Tsai said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)