| This dissertation explains why two societies that historically shared many values and features have puzzling differences in career mobility dynamics, labor force participation patterns, and work trajectories for women. With the comparisons between Japan and Taiwan, this dissertation effectively demonstrates how macro-level factors affect individual career paths and therefore gender inequality. These macro-level factors include the role that a nation plays in the global economy, employment practices resulting from labor history, labor demand conditions determined by methods of production, and transformation of women's roles within the household because of economic factors such as the level of wages for male workers.;Moreover, this dissertation pays specific attention to various types of employment, including self-employment, family enterprise employment, part-time or temporary employment, and home-based piece work. This dissertation examines job shifting across various types of employment through the life cycle for both men and women in Japan and Taiwan, and compares these two societies with respect to gender differences in career processes. The proportion of full-time, regular, standard employees in the labor force in East Asian countries has never been as great as in Western countries such as the United States and Canada. Thus, failing to consider nonstandard, atypical types of employment would fail to depict a full picture of gender stratification in East Asian countries.;This dissertation uses both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze career mobility, job shifting processes, female labor force participation patterns, and earnings inequality between men and women resulting from their career processes, with an emphasis on structural forces at the national level. The author argues that the roles that Japan and Taiwan play in the global economy and their labor histories determine their differences in aggregate labor demand, employment practices, and wage structure. These factors further affect the labor demand and supply of women, and therefore gender stratification in Japan and Taiwan.;To sum up, this dissertation calls attention to the effects of economic structures on women's employment and gender stratification. A simple assessment of gender inequality, without taking into account the structures and conditions of national labor markets, would not sufficiently identify structural forces at the national or even global level that affect gender inequality. |
