Defamilization/familization measures and women's pension income—The case of Taiwan

This paper examines how defamilisation and familisation measures can affect women’s capacity to accumulate pension income and their subsequent standard of living after retirement. Firstly, it highlights the concepts of defamilisation and familisation and discusses the potential of these measures in assisting women to save pension income through the ‘commodification of labour’ and the ‘decommodification of labour’. Secondly, it examines the major pension policies and examples of defamilisation and familisation measures in Taiwan. It shows how the current limited provision of such measures could create a ‘double jeopardy’ for women, affecting access to paid employment or resources to enable women who wish to undertake caring responsibilities to do so, and ultimately impacting their capacity to accumulate pension income. Thirdly, it suggests ways to strengthen defamilisation and familisation measures in order to enable women to accumulate sufficient retirement income on the basis of three preconditions. These are: policy attention to the reciprocal relationship between familisation measures/defamilisation measures and pension schemes for women; a recognition of differences among women in their preferred strategies to accumulate pension income; and an emphasis on a life course perspective to understand the double jeopardies faced by women in saving for retirement.