Household characteristics and women's work patterns: compromising familial care work and non-familial paid employment.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between women's work patterns and their household sharing types. It draws on the findings from a larger research project, which examined the generational and class differences of women's experiences when reconciling childcare with paid employment. The empirical basis for this paper is a series of qualitative interviews, conducted with a sample of 20 Taiwanese mothers, aged between 45 and 59 years. They were women who had been employed full-time whilst raising their children during the late 1960s and the 1970s. The evidence from the research suggests that divergent employment responses, along with other coping strategies, were adopted by the women to be compatible with their different divisions of family responsibilities. It is also argued that women's undemanding attitude towards public resources may give the state an excuse to escape from its collective responsibilities for the family and for working mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]