In an apparent first during his campaign, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday said he would “prioritize” consideration of a female running mate.
Lai made the remarks during a forum on women’s issues attended by three of Taiwan’s presidential candidates and organized by the Taiwan Women on Boards Association.
During his 20-minute speech, Lai said that he had seen firsthand the special qualities women can bring to leadership roles, having served as premier and now as vice president to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
In the past, women frequently left the workplace to have children or care for older relatives, Lai said, adding that Tsai’s policy initiatives to expand government support for children younger than 6 and seniors had gone a long way to ease the burden on families, and thus helped women continue their careers.
Lai, who has led the presidential race in opinion polls for months, told the forum that if elected, he planned to appoint a Cabinet consisting of at least one-third women.
The DPP candidate also said that he was “prioritizing” the consideration of a woman as his vice president, in remarks that fueled speculation he could select Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) for the role.
Meanwhile, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the presidential candidate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), used his speech to highlight policy proposals to support families caring for children or elderly relatives.
Hou said that he recently proposed providing a one-time housing subsidy of NT$1 million (US$30,990) to households with three or more children, and eliminating the monthly fees for public and semi-public daycare centers and kindergartens.
Hou said he would allow families to hire foreign caregivers for people older than 80, without requiring them to receive a functionality assessment on the Barthel Index.
If elected president, he said he would also set a goal of having females in at least 40 percent of Cabinet positions, higher than about one-third he appointed to head city government departments as New Taipei City mayor.
At the event, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that he would improve gender equality in government agencies not only by requiring at least one-third of management positions be filled by women, but also setting diversity targets for civil servants’ professional training programs.
“Taiwan is very strange,” Ko said, adding that women accounted for a relatively high proportion of elected officials, but were often severely underrepresented in government agencies and the Cabinet.
The former, he joked, might have to do with voting behavior, since “women will not necessarily vote for a good-looking man, but men would frequently vote for a beautiful woman.”
Underrepresentation in the Cabinet, meanwhile, likely has to do with the fact that many women leave the workplace at various points in their career, and therefore have a harder time competing for top positions, Ko said.
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