Social Change and the Family in Taiwan (review)

278 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1996 Arland Thornton and Hui-Sheng Lin. Social Change and the Family in Taiwan. With contributions by Jui-Shan Chang, et al. Chicago and London : University ofChicago Press, 1994. ix, 456 pp. Hardcover $42.50, isbn 0-226-79858-5. That large-scale social and economic transformations—the shift from a predominandy agricultural to a predominantly industrial mode ofproduction, for example —are accompanied by fundamental changes in many other institutional arenas is hardly a matter of debate. But the observation is too general, and too equivocal on the question of causal ordering, to be ofmuch value to scholars seeking to understand processes of social change in developing countries. One of the many strengths of Social Change and the Family in Taiwan is that the authors systematically explore the causal mechanisms through which changes in family patterns have resulted from industrialization, urbanization (and the migration that is necessarily involved), educational expansion, and odier social forces. This volume (published as part of the Population and Development series of the University of Chicago Press) is the result ofmore than three decades of collaboration in demographic research between scholars at the Taiwan Provincial Institute of Family Planning and the University ofMichigan. Through extensive analyses of several island-wide surveys of ever-married women and ofyoung unmarried women, the authors explore a number of questions about the nature and scope offamily change in Taiwan during the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the post-World War II period. They provide a detailed picture of trends in such matters as the process ofmarriage formation (who is involved and to what extent, in marriage decisions), the timing and prevalence ofmarriage, marital dissolution through divorce or mortality, fertility behavior, patterns of co-residence in extended households, and commitment to family continuity extending from ancestors through future generations. In each of these areas, the authors find evidence of extensive, but not complete, secular change. Not content simply to document these trends—a task which they perform very well, albeit sometimes at a level of detail far beyond what most readers would ever want to know—the authors pursue causal analyses by linking family changes with such factors as the rise in nonfamily work experience, the amount of education received , and migration experience. The volume is well organized and clearly written. The authors provide a solid y niversity review 0fthe historical and ethnographic literature on the Chinese family, with special emphasis on studies conducted in Taiwan. This provides a basis for assessing the extent offamily change during the twentieth century. The third chapter provides an overview—more or less obligatory in volumes ofthis kind—of ofHawai'i Press Reviews 279 Taiwan's social and economic transformation during the twentieth century. The outlines ofdie story told here will be familiar to many readers, but it is nevertheless worth reading. The chapter is particularly effective in linking demographic trends witii economic and social phenomena—economic development strategy, the expansion ofschooling, rising incomes, urbanization, and so on. Thornton, Lin, and the other contributors adopt a tiieoretical perspective stressing changes in modes of social organization (familial versus nonfamilial), combined witii a life-course orientation. They view "historical family change as an adjustment process in which individuals and their kinsmen modify dieir historically existing family structures and processes to fit changed environments" (p. 14) and argue that "preexisting central values, norms, and structures ofa society will guide the way in which adjustments are made to new environments" (p. 15). Prior to the twentieth century, almost all the activities ofmost Chinese took place within the context ofimmediate households or more extended family structures , which operated in corporate fashion, under die authority of senior males, to socialize children and to organize the economic activities ofindividual members as part of an integrated family strategy. In the twentieth century, however, and particularly in the period since World War II, individuals have had greatiy expanded opportunities for schooling, work, and residence experiences outside die family context, and they have adjusted dieir orientations toward dieir families accordingly. For example, the shift to compulsory and nearly universal schooling, first at the primary level and then, by the late 1960s, at the junior high...