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Governments worldwide are cognizant of the deficiencies of measuring quality of life according to gross domestic product; consequently, they have created indicators of citizen well-being that can be applied in governmental policy. To improve citizens' lives, governments should create an environment with maximal quality of life, ideal material living conditions, and sustainable well-being and determine the true needs of citizens. This paper proposes a hybrid multiple-attribute decision-making model with a modified PROMETHEE method that can identify practical performance-improvement strategies for the sustainable development of a better life by accounting for the complex dependencies among the indicators. In the proposed model, an influential network relation map is first obtained using the DEMATEL method to delineate the interrelationships among the indicators. Second, to address the feedback and dependence concerns associated with interrelationships among criteria, the influence weights are identified through the DANP method. Finally, the degree of preference is determined through the modified PROMETHEE method and combined with the influence weights to calculate flow indicators, which facilitate attaining the aspiration level. The aspiration level is set and an aspiration alternative is identified as an improvement benchmark to facilitate continual melioration and sustainable development of a better life. This model uses the OECD well-being indicators consisting of 11 dimensions and 24 criteria to measure material living conditions (namely housing, income, jobs) and quality of life (namely civic engagement, community, education, environment, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work–life balance). An empirical case study was performed to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model by using questionnaire data of six cities in Taiwan. Our results prove that the proposed model (aspired-worst as benchmark) outperforms the traditional model (max–min as benchmark) and that it can obtain more realistic net flows and an improvement benchmark to conduct ranking, selection, and continual improvement for facilitating sustainable development of a better life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of higher education in Taiwan starting from the late 1980s has successfully raised the average level of education. Using the concept of the education Gini, we find that the educational inequality declined as average schooling rose during the period of 1976–2003. The impacts of a rising average schooling and a declining educational inequality are also tested empirically in this paper. The evidence supports that a higher level of average schooling will generate a lower income inequality. On the other hand, a lower educational inequality, as measured by education Gini coefficient, will also cause a lower income inequality. Skill-biased technological change that shifts the labor demand from unskilled workers toward skilled workers is the most likely cause for the rising income inequality in Taiwan. However, the trend of rising income inequality could be reversed due to possible future over-education and unemployment in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the causal relationships between intrinsic satisfaction and individual recycling behavior in office settings in Taiwan. Role of extrinsic motivation; Consideration of factors that encourage environmentally responsible behavior; Distinction from measures of environmental attitudes.

In the backdrop of a spatial effect, this paper reconsiders the importance of life cycle in explaining the evolution of regional household income inequality in Taiwan. For the empirical period examined (1998-2006), a fixed effect panel data analysis reveals a high level of spatial clustering across 22 regions of Taiwan. When we control for spatial dependence we observe a positive relation between aging and income inequality. This regional inequality is explained by a decline in the multigenerational families followed by a rise in the elderly households with no additional income. Further, the level of inequality in income distribution of own province is positively and significantly determined by inequality in the neighboring province. To investigate further the process of regional development in Taiwan, we analyze the convergence-divergence dynamics employing spatial econometric methods. We observe both absolute and conditional beta divergence. The result points to the famous catching up or falling behind phenomenon. Failure to account for such spatial effect may cause biased results and incorrect policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Taiwan's folk happiness, which means the subjective well-being of the common people. Subjective well-being of people refers to the judgments people make about their life satisfaction or happiness. Such judgments may include their satisfaction of life as a whole (global life satisfaction) or of specific aspects of life (domain satisfaction). Based on survey data from a large sample, the life satisfaction of people is investigated in two aspects-people's personal life and their perceived conditions of living in Taiwan, respectively presented as personal well-being and national well-being or societal well-being. The meanings of the well-being findings are interpreted against the socio-political environment of Taiwan. The paper also examines the socio-demographic aspects, including gender, age, marital status, education, income, religion of the folk happiness of Taiwan. It is found that people in Taiwan are moderately happy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) in Taiwan through survey data as a result of 13 self-reported SWB questions. We illustrate the findings using multivariate data analysis approaches. First, by taking the first two principal component scores extracted from all SWB measurements, the biplot presents a relatively 'even' society for SWBs, in which the plot depicts all data-points radiating from the center. Second, we employ factor analysis to juxtapose these 13 SWB measurements into three factors: health-related, prosperity-related, and social-related. Third and finally, this paper applies the seemingly unrelated regression model to verify the determinants of SWB. The SWB measurements are mostly increasing in higher education and (disposable) income, while falling with unemployment. Volunteering, donating more money to charities, having more leisure time, spending more hours on sports, and being involved in more arts-related activities all enhance an individual's well-being. Gender and age may matter, but they are indecisive in the direction for various SWBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to construct a notion of well-being in the workplace applicable to Taiwan society as an example of the Chinese cultural communities. The construction involves the following steps. Different domains of the well-being in the workplace are identified based on the results of workplace research. A set of integrative values combining universal values and Chinese values is constructed to serve as the ground for constructing the components of workplace well-being. Both the universal portion and the Chinese portion have a generic and a workplace-specific portion as their integrative parts. The values in effect help to define specific contents of the components, thus making them relevant and applicable to the Chinese culture. The construct serves as the basis to develop specific indicators to measure, monitor and assess well-being in the workplace. The construct of workplace well-being forms a part of the general well-being in business which contains various well-beings associated with the multiple stakeholders in the business communities—customers, shareholders, citizens, competitors, communities, and the environment. In today’s globalized business environment, this construct is especially significant when more multinationals are operating with an increasingly multicultural workplace where people with different cultures communicate, cooperate and interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjective well-being is an increasingly common indicator of adequacy of psychiatric services. An easy-to-administer assessment tool of subjective well-being that is conceptually sound, valid, and reliable is needed for use in persons with schizophrenia. The purpose of this paper was to validate the 5-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)-Taiwan version for persons with schizophrenia living in the community. Specifically, the internal consistency reliability, construct validity and criterion-related validity were examined. Data were obtained from a total of 443 patients with schizophrenia at multiple areas of Taiwan. Item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed. The results revealed that the SWLS had good international consistency reliability and suggested a single-factor structure in life satisfaction among this patient group. The SWLS has good criterion-related validity with the brief World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF). It is concluded that the SWLS is a sound measurement to be used with persons with schizophrenia living in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of higher education expansion on the phenomena of credentialism and gender discrimination in education. Using the survey data of Family Income and Expenditure by DGBAS, Taiwan from 1980 to 2009, we examine the time path of the effect of higher education expansion on household expenditures for children's education in Taiwan for five sub-periods: 1980-1990, 1991-1995, 1996-2000, 2001-2005, and 2006-2009. We show that, surprisingly, although the higher education expansion during the 1990s lowers the requirement of college entrance, credentialism seems to continue to prevail in the Taiwanese society. However, the higher education expansion does change parents' attitude on female children's education and increase the possibility for female children to attain higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To facilitate comparison across cultures, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been developing a universal measure of quality of life (QOL) called the WHOQOL Questionnaire. This questionnaire contains 24 facets organized into six broad domains: physical, psychological, level of independence, social relationships, environment, and spirituality/religion/personal beliefs. The standard WHOQOL is designed for cross-cultural comparison. However, to obtain a valid QOL measure that can be applied in diverse populations, cultural adaptation of the WHOQOL has been encouraged. Each culture is permitted to add culture-specific questions, called national items, so that the questionnaire can also reflect cultural attributes. Three Chinese versions of the WHOQOL have been developed for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. National items were selected for each version according to the criteria proposed by the WHOQOL Group. The purpose of this paper is to compare the Taiwan version to the China and Hong Kong versions. The questionnaire development process, response scale generation, psychometric properties (reliability and validity), national items, and population means were all examined. Results indicated that not only is cultural adaptation of WHOQOL measures necessary for individual cultures, but also for sub-cultures, as these differences must be considered in order to provide effective health care and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the suicide rates of 23 cities and counties in Taiwan from 1983 to 2001. We found that a combination of economic and social variables can significantly account for the tremendous variations in suicide rates across Taiwan’s cities and counties over the last two decades. The level of income per capita in a region appears as the most important predictor of suicide rates. However, some sociological correlates (such as divorce rate) which were less powerful in explaining suicide rate variations in the earlier study appear to exert more significant influence over suicide rates when eight more recent years of information are added, as in the current study. This study also uncovered several gender differences in the determination of regional suicide rates, such as the proportion of elderly population in the region, and the impacts of earthquake and unemployment. Furthermore, this study confirmed the linkages between natural disaster (earthquake) and suicide, between economic and social miseries (unemployment and divorce, respectively) and suicide, as well as those between demographics (aboriginal and elderly sub-population groups) and suicide. This may help to identify high-risk groups or areas where suicide prevention and intervention efforts should be concentrated on or directed to. Lastly, the local suicide crisis-intervention agencies are found to be significantly effective in reducing suicide rates of the community they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the scalability of intimacy permissiveness measures in Taiwan by using island-wide survey data. Among models for scaling analysis, the Guttman scaling model and two latent class models – the latent-distance model and Goodman’s scale model – were employed to examine the scalability of the scale measures. The data were drawn from the 2002 Taiwan Social Change Survey (Questionnaire No. 2), conducted by Academia Sinica. A total of 1983 completed interviews were obtained. This study found that the measures of intimacy permissiveness scale (IPS) were able to form a reasonable Guttman-type scale based on three scaling models. In order to understand whether the attitudinal patterns of Taiwanese toward premarital intimacy permissiveness, particularly the existence of sexual double standards, are consistent with those suggested by the previous literature, we conducted multinomial logistic regression of socio-demographic variables on the scale. Gender and age differences were found consistent with previous studies and mostly reconfirmed the appropriateness of the measures of IPS designed for the Taiwan Social Change Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a nationwide survey dataset collected by Taiwan's Executive Yuan (2017) (N = 2737) and adopting structural equation modelling with bootstrapped method, we confirm that citizens' positive appraisal of liberal democracy can foster subjective wellbeing via political trust but find civic participation irrelevant in this model. The proposed model remains significant after age, education, residency and personal income are controlled. The only exceptions are the gender effects in the relationship between appraisal of liberal democracy and political trust and that between political trust and civic participation. The former is positively stronger for female, whereas the latter is negatively stronger for male. While civic participation has long been widely accepted as a foundational component of any consolidated democracy, empirical evidence of this study calls for reflection on the application of this notion in an East Asian setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses on Chinese folk happiness are often based on anecdotal narratives or qualitative analysis. Two traditional concepts of happiness popular in Chinese culture are introduced. The paper constructs a concept of Chinese folk happiness on basis of the findings of a scientific survey on the Taiwanese people regarding their concepts of well-being at nation and personal levels. The survey has revealed that people's concepts of well-being are consisted of a diversity of elements including political, economic, social, and cultural factors, as well as health, family, job, and social relationships. The paper compares these concepts with the traditional notions of Chinese folk happiness.

Research over several decades about subjective life satisfaction has led to the conclusion that the majority of people seem to be satisfied with their lives when their social and physical needs are met. In empirical studies which have used self-report instruments, this trend is reflected in respondents' consistent preference for the positive end of scales. This led to the suggestion that there is a normative range for life satisfaction, which should hold true for general population data and, therefore, serve as a reference point, or a gold standard, for comparison (Cummins "Social Indicators Research," 35, 179-200, 1995, "Social Indicators Research," 43, 307-334, 1998). Subsequent research has shown that Western and non-Western samples generally conform to the normative range, but more data are needed from Chinese societies. In an attempt to remedy this situation, this paper investigates normative life satisfaction there. This paper reanalyses published and unpublished data from various Chinese societies (People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and Taiwan) in order to confirm whether or not they lie within the normative range for non-Western countries. The results provide support for the relevance of Cummins's normative range in Chinese societies. That the normative range generalised to the present study is a very useful finding, as it supports its utility for Chinese samples, and adds support to a theoretical explanation--i.e. the Wellbeing Homeostasis theory--in Chinese groups.

Two major educational expansions in Taiwan have resulted in a remarkable improvement of human capital accumulation for the last three decades, which is consistent with the long-run goal of education in improving individual well-being and international competitiveness. This study focuses on the expansion of higher education starting from the late 1980s. As the number of higher-educated workers entering the labor market each year has increased rapidly, this higher education expansion policy has encountered some critiques from the public. Evidence shows that the incidence of over-educated workers in the labor market has been continuously increasing after the expansion, which is considered to be a short-run problem from the policy. We also find that the overall educational inequality drops sharply, which is mainly contributed by the within age group component after decomposing educational inequality using the decomposable Theil index. Along with a larger increase in average schooling for women, a larger reduction in educational inequality for women than for men implies women have benefited more than men from the policy and the educational inequality between men and women is narrowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effect of social capital on perceived and predicted wellbeing in three East Asian countries. On the basis of a multi-layered approach to measuring social capital by both trust in and interactions with kin, friends and neighbors, an individual's happiness, life satisfaction, and the prospective life conditions over three life course phases are estimated using regression techniques. Trust generally is correlated with an individual's well-being, but the degree of covariation differs across different types of trust. These exists a persistent, substantial influence of community involvement on perceived well-being and predicted life condition in old age. Trust in neighbors is not necessary for those with high community involvement, which is a major explanatory factor in predicting well-being in old age. In addition, the estimation outcomes from the interaction model do not suggest that the dark side of such trust is a concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to construct Taiwan's Active Aging Index (TAAI) based on the Active Aging Index (AAI) of the European Union (EU) and with consideration of the cultural and specific characteristics in Taiwan and to compare the result with the AAI status in the EU-28 countries. The first draft of TAAI was developed; 25 experts from the aging industry, government representatives, and academics were invited to participate in the modified Delphi method or an expert group meeting. Older adults were invited to collect opinions from the perspective of older people. The weights of the TAAI indicators were assessed by an analytical hierarchical method based on the Delphi method questionnaire. The indicators collected by a survey questionnaire were designed, pretested and modified, and then, the data were collected from a sample across four regions of Taiwan (n = 738). The TAAI indicator scores were calculated accordingly. The AAI performance of Taiwan was also compared with the performance of the EU-28 countries. The original 4 AAI domains were maintained in the framework. In TAAI, 11 indicators were added to the existing four domains and, in total, 33 indicators were suggested. The TAAI indicators showed acceptable reliability and predictive validity in self-rated health. The indicators regarding health and capacity for active aging in Taiwan were good, and social participation and economic security could be improved. The TAAI framework and indicators are suggested to be applied in the monitoring and policy making of active aging and in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is multifaceted. In this study, multiple data sources and analytical approaches were used to analyze multidimensional poverty profiles in Taiwan. The Alkire–Foster method and a multilevel modeling technique were applied to examine multidimensional poverty and multilevel factors, respectively. The resulting estimates of multidimensional poverty indicated disparate multidimensional poverty profiles for the four districts of Taiwan. This study's findings on the multilevel determinants of multidimensional poverty demonstrate that the levels of multiple dimensions of deprivation vary across cities and counties according to microlevel factors including age, socioeconomic status, marital status, household income, and household size. At the macrolevel, level of urbanization and service-to-manufacturing ratio were found to significantly correlate with level of multidimensional poverty. Finally, the study presents the implications of these findings for antipoverty policy and provides suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development (SD) governance for a better society has received considerable attention. The development of a robust benchmarking and performance evaluation approach is a matter of growing concern to accelerate the progress in achieving SD. In this study, a minimum distance-based additive data envelopment analysis model with window analysis is proposed to attain the closest benchmarking target in the presence of undesirable outputs. This novel extension not only focuses on the construction of a composite indicator to shed light on the efficiency of each decision-making unit but also provides convincing and realizable suggestions for improving efficiency. This study benchmarks the SD efficiency across 19 administrative regions of Taiwan covering the period from 2011 to 2016. The empirical results reveal that the average SD efficiency of Taiwan has experienced a gradual deterioration over the last 3 years, and the primary sources of regional SD inefficiency may vary with industrial structure. Potential directions of improvement for reinforcing sustainable practices in Taiwan are also discussed. The findings can provide local governments with holistic insights into the sources that degrade SD performance and further contribute to improving SD solutions by recommending appropriate policies to achieve a more sustainable society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most recent discussion of the adaptive reuse of school land has focused almost exclusively on repurposing or redeploying vacant school space rather than comprehensively re-planning and constructing the entire school land for the overall needs of society and urban development. The relevant government agencies for school land reuse in Taiwan, such as the Ministry of Education and municipal governments, mostly provide subjective regulations or revitalization provisions for the sustainable development of school resources; however, no specific scientific assessment or a planning procedure has been proposed to revitalize school land. Therefore, constructing a scientific, quantitative, and objective planning framework and procedure is necessary for the adaptive reuse of school land based on the needs of overall society and urban development in order to replace the existing and outdated planning philosophy and to correct prominent shortcomings of past planning operations that were solely in accordance with the qualitative judgment and decision making of official agencies. In this study, we mainly adopted the analytic network process (ANP) and big data, including demographics, facility usage, and social welfare indicators, to assist the Taipei City government to construct or reform land reuse strategies for junior high and elementary schools facing immediate or future closure, consolidation, or downsizing. To take a more realistic approach to improve final decision making, the investigation of expert questionnaires through the ANP was based on the consideration of future trends that were objectively evaluated by big datasets. The novel planning philosophy and concise decision framework for reuse strategies we designed are expected to improve public decision-making transparency, adaptive reuse effectiveness, and quality of urban life. Ultimately, our proposed strategies and suggestions can not only assist local public sectors to promote the policy of adaptive reuse of surplus school lands but also serve as an appropriate blueprint of urban sustainability for the central government in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a model of work satisfaction and tests it against data from South Korea and Taiwan drawn from the ISSP's 2005 Work Orientation Survey. It argues that work control, defined as a worker's decision power in work arrangements, can increase commitments to firms, which, in turn, boosts job satisfaction. This study suggests using workers' control over both tasks and time to construct a typology of work control. Empirical results indicate that a mediating model best captures the causal process of work satisfaction. The two samples studied here show more similarity than diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feeling close to fellow citizens in the city is a feature of social cohesion that is worth investigation among East Asian societies for exploring societal conditions for the closeness. Because of the variation of such conditions among the societies, differentials in the closeness among the societies are possible. As the variation of societal conditions can translate into differences in personal characteristics and experiences, such differences are likely to explain differentials in the closeness. This likelihood is a focus for the present study, which surveyed 4,087 adult citizens in Hong Kong ( n = 681), South Korea ( n = 1,006), Taiwan ( n = 1,200), and Thailand ( n = 1,200). Results revealed significant differentials in the closeness among the societies, showing that it was highest in Thailand and lowest in Taiwan. Furthermore, these differentials were largely due to differences in personal and characteristics among citizens in the four societies. Among the significant predictors of the closeness, work-family conflict and the costliness of medical expense are two experiences. The two experiences, as well as other predictors, champion a conflict or social force explanation for citizens' closeness. Accordingly, conflict or social force that is incapacitating would estrange the incapacitated individual from others. The results and explanation imply that relieving work and family conflicts is relevant to lifting citizens' closeness. In conclusion, the East Asian societies manifested differentials in citizens' social cohesion, and the differentials are explicable by differentials in resources and conflicts among the societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have under-examined neighborhood stores and other 'resources' and their relationships to community welfare and personal happiness. Because the presence of neighborhood conveniences may signify that a neighborhood caters to residents' needs and smoothes out the hassles of their daily lives, it could be hypothesized that commercial amenities and services enhance individuals' satisfaction with their neighborhoods, with their health, and even with their lives as a whole. This study used a national probability sample from Taiwan, a densely populated society in East Asia, to test if service-oriented commercial and religious enterprises in neighborhoods are associated with positive estimations of well-being by those who occupy these spaces. We empirically examine whether proximity to main roads, night markets and temples or proximity to smoky food stands and other shops that produce pungent products affects well-being. Our findings from multivariate analyses suggest that if nearby conveniences are conceived as annoyances, they tend to lower satisfaction with neighborhood, but they do not lower life satisfaction in general. In contrast, air quality, along with 'peace and quietness' is reported by respondents to be key in enhancing general well-being. We discuss the policy implications in the concluding session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to test a cause-and-effect model of factors affecting leisure satisfaction among Taiwanese adolescents. A structural equation model was proposed in which the relationships among leisure motivation, leisure involvement, and leisure satisfaction were explored. The study collected data from 701 adolescent students at a junior college in central Taiwan. Participants were assessed using a questionnaire that captured leisure motivation, leisure involvement, leisure satisfaction and demographic data. The preliminary model fit criteria, overall model fit, and fit of the internal structure of model were used to assess the leisure satisfaction model fit. The results revealed that leisure motivation had no significant effect on leisure satisfaction when leisure involvement was also in the model, but leisure motivation had a significant effect on leisure involvement. Adolescents with higher leisure involvement had more positive leisure satisfaction. We found that 92.0% of the variance in adolescents' leisure satisfaction could be explained by leisure involvement. When leisure involvement was considered in the model, no significant predictive effect on the leisure satisfaction of adolescents was found for leisure motivation. In order to enhance leisure satisfaction, it is strongly suggested that adolescents learn to be involved in leisure activities and obtain support from their family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, many employment relationships in Taiwan have evolved from regular and long-term to contingent and short-term, with widespread downsizing adding a considerable amount of instability. Since these changes are part of a global trend, there is a growing literature concerning their influences on worker attitudes and work life quality. Here we analyze the impacts of changing employment practices on the quality of work life among Taiwanese workers, specifically analyzing the effects of nonstandard work arrangements and downsizing on job satisfaction. Data are from the 2005 Taiwan Social Change Survey, First Wave of the Fifth Phase: Work and Life Module. Our two main findings are (a) degree of use of nonstandard workers exerts a range of negative impacts on job satisfaction among regular workers, and (b) degree of downsizing exerts similar negative effects. We also discuss the moderating impacts of using nonstandard workers as part of a downsizing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the gender relationship of men and women in Taiwan. Firstly, it employs power relation to explore what the gender relationship is and how this gender relationship has produced. Secondly, it describes how this gender relationship has influenced Taiwanese society. It also explains the gender inequality of both sexes in Taiwan and Taiwanese women's resistance to traditional and Western culture. Thirdly, it analyses how this gender relationship has reflected on Taiwanese women's leisure. The analysis is designed to indicate the roles held by women and men in Taiwanese society in this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore public perceptions of global food risk issues and public attitudes towards government capacity to respond to concerns with technological and health uncertainties in an era of rapid economic development in newly industrialized countries. From cross-national comparative research on global food risk issues in the EU, UK, Germany, and Taiwan, survey results revealed distinct structural problems existing in Taiwan. In particular, it revealed that a long-term culture of authoritarian technological decision-making and positivistic risk assessment has lead to social risk perceptions being institutionally amplified and public trust gradually being destroyed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of Wood’s Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (JSQ) among Taiwanese workers. The participants were 341 nonprofit sport organization workers ( Mage = 35.89, SD = 9.23) who completed the job satisfaction questionnaire, turnover intention scale, and organizational commitment. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the validity of the JSQ. Results indicated that the model fit was satisfactory and a second-order factor accounts for the relationships among the first-order factors. In addition, the JSQ was, as expected, positively correlated with organizational commitment but is inversely correlated with turnover intention. The Cronbach’s α was 76 for the JSQ, indicating a satisfactory validity and reliability in the Taiwanese worker sample. We conclude that the JSQ is useful for assessing an employee’s satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AsiaBarometer survey of 1,006 respondents shows that in Taiwan, people have access to modern utilities and digital media, signs of materialistic achievement, and yet are more concerned with physical security and financial safety than with personal growth. Regardless of their demographic backgrounds and value priorities, the Taiwanese, like other Confucian publics, are most satisfied with the interpersonal life sphere and least satisfied with the public life sphere. Their satisfaction levels concerning various life domains affect their sense of well-being more than does their prioritization of values. Assessments of material and nonmaterial life domains contribute to their sense of well-being more than those of interpersonal and public domains do. Access to modern utilities and a high income, however, detract from their sense of well-being. As is the case elsewhere, a better set of objective life circumstance does not necessarily make for a greater quality of life in Taiwan. The government, therefore, should seek to provide more than economic goods and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan’s paradox of family decline is examined with a household-based convoy, which allows us to explore the paradox from two perspectives, namely, the modified extended family and the household-based convoy. The modified extended family refers to the reunion of spatially separated families covering two generations. The household-based convoy is an extension of the modified extended family that includes relatives and friends with whom there is frequent contact. A probability sample survey with 1,979 cases completed is used to answer two questions: (1) Has there been a change in Taiwan’s family function because of structural change? (2) Is the family’s function being replaced by relatives and friends with whom there is frequent contact? The results of this study show that the coverage of the modified extended family is as high as 81%, indicating a high coherence among spatially separated households covering two generations. The proportions of the respondents who have provided five types of support including sick care, household chores, advice, regular allowances, and irregular allowances to non-coresiding parents are mostly around 40%. Moreover, the members of a modified extended family do have independent functions in relation to most types of support. These findings all lend evidence to refute the view that the family is declining in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The labor quality index (LQI) not only serves as an important reference for monitoring the progress of the sustainable development of a country, but it can also serve as an important parameter for economic analysis. To compile such an index for Taiwan, we conducted two large-scale surveys of 1000 major enterprises and 844 union leaders, respectively, to determine the appropriate weights for each key factor. We also searched for all the relevant statistics that were used to calculate the weighted sum of the 25 sub-indexes, in order to compile a LQI for Taiwan’s manufacturing industries covering the period from 1990-2000. Our calculations show that this LQI rose from 80.2 in 1990 to 117.5 in 2000, which reflected an impressive 37.3% increase in just one decade. This rate of growth has, however, been slowing down since 1997. Our results indicate that the LQI provides a valuable indicator for monitoring the enhancement of labor quality in this society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the closeness of kinship relationships, a 4-layer household-based convoy is proposed for the study of intergenerational support exchanges. It first separates co-residing family members from non-coresiding family members with whom they have frequent contact and places them in the innermost and next-innermost circles of an individual’s convoy structure, respectively. Relatives and friends with whom there is frequent contact are then added as the third and outer-most circles. In principle, it is ideal to have a full four layers. However, in reality, most people miss one or more layers during the different stages of the life cycle. A probability sample with 1979 cases is used to investigate the effect of convoy incompleteness on intergenerational support exchanges. The research findings show that missing any one layer and missing both the third and fourth layers do not result in a significantly negative effect on the mean types of support exchanged. When individual types of support are examined one by one, the convoy structure works similarly but selectively. It works best for types of support involving more labor costs, less for those involving financial support, and least for those involving advice. In addition, it is noted that a multiple exchange strategy is used in intergenerational support exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of higher education expansion on the phenomena of credentialism and gender discrimination in education. Using the survey data of Family Income and Expenditure by DGBAS, Taiwan from 1980 to 2009, we examine the time path of the effect of higher education expansion on household expenditures for children's education in Taiwan for five sub-periods: 1980-1990, 1991-1995, 1996-2000, 2001-2005, and 2006-2009. We show that, surprisingly, although the higher education expansion during the 1990s lowers the requirement of college entrance, credentialism seems to continue to prevail in the Taiwanese society. However, the higher education expansion does change parents' attitude on female children's education and increase the possibility for female children to attain higher education.

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications.

The aim of this paper is to construct a notion of well-being in the workplace applicable to Taiwan society as an example of the Chinese cultural communities. The construction involves the following steps. Different domains of the well-being in the workplace are identified based on the results of workplace research. A set of integrative values combining universal values and Chinese values is constructed to serve as the ground for constructing the components of workplace well-being. Both the universal portion and the Chinese portion have a generic and a workplace-specific portion as their integrative parts. The values in effect help to define specific contents of the components, thus making them relevant and applicable to the Chinese culture. The construct serves as the basis to develop specific indicators to measure, monitor and assess well-being in the workplace. The construct of workplace well-being forms a part of the general well-being in business which contains various well-beings associated with the multiple stakeholders in the business communities--customers, shareholders, citizens, competitors, communities, and the environment. In today's globalized business environment, this construct is especially significant when more multinationals are operating with an increasingly multicultural workplace where people with different cultures communicate, cooperate and interact.

Subjective well-being is an increasingly common indicator of adequacy of psychiatric services. An easy-to-administer assessment tool of subjective well-being that is conceptually sound, valid, and reliable is needed for use in persons with schizophrenia. The purpose of this paper was to validate the 5-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)-Taiwan version for persons with schizophrenia living in the community. Specifically, the internal consistency reliability, construct validity and criterion-related validity were examined. Data were obtained from a total of 443 patients with schizophrenia at multiple areas of Taiwan. Item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed. The results revealed that the SWLS had good international consistency reliability and suggested a single-factor structure in life satisfaction among this patient group. The SWLS has good criterion-related validity with the brief World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF). It is concluded that the SWLS is a sound measurement to be used with persons with schizophrenia living in the community.

This paper examines the suicide rates of 23 cities and counties in Taiwan from 1983 to 2001. We found that a combination of economic and social variables can significantly account for the tremendous variations in suicide rates across Taiwan's cities and counties over the last two decades. The level of income per capita in a region appears as the most important predictor of suicide rates. However, some sociological correlates (such as divorce rate) which were less powerful in explaining suicide rate variations in the earlier study appear to exert more significant influence over suicide rates when eight more recent years of information are added, as in the current study. This study also uncovered several gender differences in the determination of regional suicide rates, such as the proportion of elderly population in the region, and the impacts of earthquake and unemployment. Furthermore, this study confirmed the linkages between natural disaster (earthquake) and suicide, between economic and social miseries (unemployment and divorce, respectively) and suicide, as well as those between demographics (aboriginal and elderly sub-population groups) and suicide. This may help to identify high-risk groups or areas where suicide prevention and intervention efforts should be concentrated on or directed to. Lastly, the local suicide crisis-intervention agencies are found to be significantly effective in reducing suicide rates of the community they serve.

The expansion of higher education in Taiwan starting from the late 1980s has successfully raised the average level of education. Using the concept of the education Gini, we find that the educational inequality declined as average schooling rose during the period of 1976-2003. The impacts of a rising average schooling and a declining educational inequality are also tested empirically in this paper. The evidence supports that a higher level of average schooling will generate a lower income inequality. On the other hand, a lower educational inequality, as measured by education Gini coefficient, will also cause a lower income inequality. Skill-biased technological change that shifts the labor demand from unskilled workers toward skilled workers is the most likely cause for the rising income inequality in Taiwan. However, the trend of rising income inequality could be reversed due to possible future over-education and unemployment in the labor market.

This paper examines the scalability of intimacy permissiveness measures in Taiwan by using island-wide survey data. Among models for scaling analysis, the Guttman scaling model and two latent class models--the latent-distance model and Goodman's scale model--were employed to examine the scalability of the scale measures. The data were drawn from the 2002 Taiwan Social Change Survey (Questionnaire No. 2), conducted by Academia Sinica. A total of 1983 completed interviews were obtained. This study found that the measures of intimacy permissiveness scale (IPS) were able to form a reasonable Guttman-type scale based on three scaling models. In order to understand whether the attitudinal patterns of Taiwanese toward premarital intimacy permissiveness, particularly the existence of sexual double standards, are consistent with those suggested by the previous literature, we conducted multinomial logistic regression of socio-demographic variables on the scale. Gender and age differences were found consistent with previous studies and mostly reconfirmed the appropriateness of the measures of IPS designed for the Taiwan Social Change Survey.