變遷社會中的女性－一個生命歷程的研究觀點

晚近台灣社會與經濟結構上的大幅變遷，使得女性無論自願或被迫，開始大量進入就業市場。在這同時，女性的教育程度提高，結婚、生育的時程都延後，而離婚率提高、家庭解組風險增加，都使得女性相當標準化的傳統生命歷程模式出現重大變化。就當「勞動參與」成為女性個人主要的生命歷程階段，男性與女性「生活連結」下的家庭分工，以及就業與家庭之間的「多重參與」協調，便益顯得重要。建立在「男主外、女主內」核心家庭的社會福利政策，或稱男性養家模式，也因此面臨了不得不轉型的挑戰。關於社會變遷以及世代間差異的研究，是當前社會福利政策改革不可或缺的認識工具，生命歷程研究也因此成為近二十五年來西歐及美加地區的重要研究取向。台灣目前關於生命歷程的相關研究仍可說是相當地缺乏。本文希望援引和參照西方研究的經驗，從生命歷程的研究觀點出發，嘗試對於當前變遷中的台灣女性生命歷程提出一個新的觀察與切入點，期能提供對女性與家庭相關社會福利政策研究些許助益。

關鍵字

社會變遷；女性；生命歷程研究；工作與家庭的平衡

並列摘要

A series of significant changes occurred in social and economic structure in Taiwan make a huge amount of women join in job market. The improvement of women's education delayed women's schedule of marriage and fertility. The rise in divorce rate and the family disruption risk have also changed women's traditional standard life course. When participation of labor market become an inevitable trend in women's life course, the gender division of ”linked lives” at home and the ”multiple participation” between work and family become more and more important. The social welfare policies based on nuclear family model (or male-breadwinner model) are under greater pressure of reform in order to confront these challenges. Researches of social changes and generational differences are key tools to understand reforms of contemporary social welfare policies, and thereby life course researches become flourishing during last 25 years in Western Europe, USA and Canada. So far, there are few studies about life course research in Taiwan. This article takes life course perspectives into account from western research experience, and proposes a new point of view for changing life course of women in Taiwan. Hopefully, it is helpful to reform social welfare policies for both women and family.