Transitions to Marriage and Parenthood in Taiwan: Their Causes and Consequences

YaFeng Lin, Louisiana State University
Yoshinori Kamo, Louisiana State University

The second demographic transition theory illustrates how the decrease in marriages affects fertilities in developed countries. Beginning in Northern Europe, total fertility rates declined to below the replacement level (2.1). We believe that Taiwan is a good example to re-examine the second transition theory. In 30 years, the total fertility rates in Taiwan decreased from 2.455 to 0.895. This huge decline in a short period of time is very worthy to conduct research on. We argue that the expansion of higher education, particularly that among women, is the main reason for fertility decrease in Taiwan. As predicted, education shows strong positive effects on egalitarian gender role attitudes and nontraditional attitudes toward marriages for women. In addition, the influences of education among women are huge, as shown in our analysis on parental status.