The link between state policies and feminisation can be identified at two loci: reforms of the educational system and of primary teacher training. It is suggested that feminisation tends to occur when the educational system is formalised and expanded (Addi-Raccah, 2002; Bradley, 1989). Thus, the first explanation for state policies affecting women’s ever-increasing entry into primary teaching is the development of the Taiwanese educational system. The extension of the length of compulsory citizens’ education (from 6 years to 9) was implemented in 1968. According to an official report (Department of Education, 1984), the Taiwanese government launched the Six-Year Project of Fostering Citizens’ Education during the period 1965-1970 to address critical issues related to primary teaching. With the growth of the population, this report pointed out that 60% of classes had over 50 pupils, which caused difficulties for teachers and their teaching practices. Therefore, more classes and even more primary schools were needed to reduce class sizes. State statistics (Department of Statistics, MOE, 2012) show that, before 1965, Taiwan had fewer than 2,000 public primary schools, and by the turn of the century, the number reached over 2,300 and has kept growing. However, taking 1961 for example, it was estimated that untrained teachers constituted nearly one-third of the teaching workforce. Pupil enrolments were also a matter of concern. The Government planned to raise the percentage of pupil enrolments from 96.7% in 1964 to 99%. To meet the increasing number of pupils as well, more qualified teachers were required. More importantly, owing to the increase in teacher demand accompanied by the extension, women gained more opportunities to access teaching jobs (Li, 2001; Shen, 2004). In short, the additional teachers have been women, not men. Table 1 also reveals the link between changes in state educational policies and the increasing number of female teachers hired in the 1970s.

Paralleling the urgent need for teachers and increased pupil enrolments in primary schools over time, another explanation related to state policies is the reforms of primary teacher training. The extension of Normal institutions from three-year into five-year institutions between 1963 and 1967 was accompanied by a remarkable growth in student numbers. As indicated by Shen (2004), this reform provided women with more opportunities to receive teacher training. Figure 1 shows this causal connection; that is, that more entrants recruited in the teacher training institutions have been women. Before the reform, for example, in 1963, female students were underrepresented at 32.8%. With the numbers growing faster in the 1970s, the magnitude of the shift can be seen, such that, after 1977, female students became the numerical majority.

The following may offer a concrete example of how official measures helped the recruitment and entry of more women. A project begun in 1954 to enhance the quality of primary school teachers placed an emphasis on the recruitment of women (Department of Education, 1984). Moreover, according to the regulations of this project, women would be provided with such priorities as teaching at schools with good transport and transferring to teach in other schools when they were in need or got married (ibid). In the 1980s, there was a continuing rise in pupil enrolments in Taiwan. To provide pupils with better learning settings, more qualified primary teachers were demanded because of the alterations in the educational policies for lowering pupil-teacher ratios and reducing class sizes. While the shortage for approximately 6,000 to 7,000 teachers required urgent action (Chou, 1992), in 1989 there was an alternative route, known as the Post-undergraduate Teacher Training Schemes⁵, set up to attract non-traditional entrants with an interest in primary teaching to fill job vacancies. It is estimated that over 11,000 trainees, constituting approximately one-eighth of the teaching workforce (Wu, 1996), received their teacher qualifications through these schemes (Li, 2001). The implementation of these schemes also accelerated the growth in female teacher numbers as female trainees outnumbered males (Yang, 2007), with a tendency for young women aged 20-30 to take up teacher training (Chang, 1990). This partially explains the increase of female teachers in the 1990s, as shown in Table 1.

If we ask further why reforms result in more females rather than males going into primary teaching, partial answers may reside in the Taiwanese cultural contexts that construct teaching as a profession suitable for women, as discussed below.

As Depaepe, Lauwers, and Simon (2006, p. 155) emphasise, “the conception of ‘feminisation’ not only meant that the feminine element had become dominant in the teaching population in quantitative terms,” but it was also closely linked to “the circumstances that determine social development,” such as social and cultural characteristics, norms, and values. In addition to educational reforms, this article also directs attention to the significance of cultural contexts in the shaping of primary teaching as suitable work for women, thereby affecting women’s occupational choices. What are the Taiwanese cultural contexts that gave rise to the substantial presence of women in teaching? There is no single answer. Gender norms, teaching as a career conforming to feminine attributes, men leaving primary teaching, and women’s economic and personal independence will be considered as cultural facilitators for women entering the primary teaching profession.

Gender Norms. Taiwanese researchers have argued that owing to gender norms, parents promote the idea that primary teaching is a woman’s profession suitable for their daughters (Li, 2001; Kao, 2001; Yang, 2001). Parents’ expectations are suggested as one reason motivating women to teach (Lin, 1990; Yang, 2007). In my ethnographic study, a senior female teacher provided an example of this. She recollected that when she could not make up her mind whether to teach, her parents explicitly advised her: “For girls, being a teacher is the best option.” Her statement echoes Griffin’s (1997) view that teaching is a gendered decision.

Monetary rewards can never be considered independently from gender norms. Monetary incentives have been highlighted because of the fact that many female teachers seem to come from poor households (Chen, 1994; Liang, 1986; Lin, 1990) or from ethnic minority backgrounds (Yang, 2001). For these women, and also for males, studying in teacher training institutions offered such financial advantages as no tuition and boarding fees, some benefits and allowances during their studies, offers of jobs with permanent contracts, and pensions after graduation (Shen, 2004; Yang, 2007). As Lin (1990) claims, parents’ expectations may have been affected, manifestly or implicitly, by those material benefits. Some Taiwanese parents still hold patriarchal stereotypes of “men privileged and women humble” (nan tsun nu pei). Under such circumstances, daughters of those families always give way to the privileges of their male siblings (Parish & Willis, 1993). Chen’s (1994) and others’ (Shen, 2004; Yang, 2007) studies demonstrate that the option of studying in Normal schools is the only opportunity for daughters from poor families to advance their studies. With the fact, noted earlier, that teachers are well paid, Tsai’s (2001) study reporting that teaching jobs are highly valued by females because of the salaries serves as an indication of the attraction of material incentives for women.

The association between feminisation and gender norms can also be explained by the gendering of the labour market and career promotion. Lin’s (1990) and Yang’s (2007) studies remind us that women are highly likely to enter the teaching field because the options of professions open to women, despite having the same educational background, are comparatively restricted compared to those for men (Depaepe, Lauwers, & Simon, 2006). Additionally, gender norms also limit women’s career advancement. Owing to domestic responsibilities, women are criticised for their lack of commitment to career prospects (Acker, 1994; Griffin, 1997). Regarding teaching, the findings of a large-scale survey investigating Taiwanese principals suggest the domestic division of labour to be a disadvantage for women and their career promotions (You & Ko, 2004), although some women do display strong ambitions to pursue higher positions (Shen, 2004; Yang, 2007). To some extent, the concentration of women in classroom teaching also reflects feminisation.

My research also bears similar evidence. A female teacher of 30-years’ experience once told me that after her mother wanted her to be a barber’s assistant, her response was: “I, without a second’s hesitation, was determined to be a teacher by working hard to pass the extremely difficult entrance exams.” Her story justifies the point that being a primary teacher appears to be the best option for young women of high intellectual abilities because they have little family support and are constrained by a narrow range of occupational opportunities. In addition, women’s responses also support their concentration in classroom teaching. A female teacher commented that “women prioritise their family lives.” Another woman referred to the prevalence of the gender norms as a deterrent for women to seek career promotions:

It’s believed that marriage and having children are burdens for female teachers. This is a critical reason. This is why lots of women give up opportunities of pursuing higher posts.

She further explained:

If you (women) want to pursue career advancement as a dean or a principal, you may need to leave home… You won’t be able to look after your children. By contrast, it’ll be alright for Dads to do so as childcare is Mums’ duty. Everyone takes this for granted.

Their accounts echoed their principal’s view that “promotion is less compatible with female teachers’ household lives,” as discussed below. In fact, Taiwanese researchers have voiced their concerns about difficulties of achieving a work-life balance for female teachers in pursuit of promotions (Tsai, 2001; You & Ko, 2004). State statistics report male dominance in managerial positions: between 2001 and 2012, men held approximately 70% of principalships (MOE, 2013).

Teaching As a Career Conforming to Feminine Attributes. Another vital factor explaining the feminisation is that primary teaching is seen as a career conforming to femininity. The explanation is twofold. In the public sphere, western research has identified a stereotypical perception of working with young children as connected with motherly caring ascribed to women (Acker, 1999; Drudy, 2008). Such a connection is also evidenced in local Taiwanese research. For example, Yang (2007) claims that the female teachers interviewed, whether single or married, relate their career options to the suitability of femininity to their classroom practices, especially in establishing intimate relationships with younger pupils. Among few researchers examining ethnic minority women’s experiences, Yang (2001) identifies the fact that young women in indigenous tribes⁶ are encouraged to choose primary teaching rather than teaching in secondary schools. Young women are inculcated with the belief that being good at looking after young children is an “inborn” female trait. According to the findings of a large-scale investigation, approximately 38% of teachers respond that their role is like that of nannies (Chuang, 1998), “nannies of high quality” (Chang, Hwang, & Yang, 2000, p. 97). On the first day of my fieldwork, the female class teacher observed gave the following account of her work: “teaching younger pupils is like being a nanny.”

In the private sphere, primary teaching is seen to be highly compatible with domestic responsibilities ascribed to women. Childcare negatively impacts on women in full-time jobs (Huang & Hsiung, 1992) and teachers are no exception; however, teaching jobs offer compatibility and flexibility for women’s careers and their domestic roles (Yang, 2007). The advantages partially explain why parents support their daughters to enter the field of teaching (Yang, 2001). In my study, almost all female teachers, but men as well, agreed that women undertook a greater share of childcare and domestic chores, and, as one of them commented, “female teachers prioritise their family lives.” Another example is that in Taiwan, children are allowed to study in the primary school in which their parent(s) work(s); however, in most cases children will go to their mother’s school, and this can also be found in my case-study school.

Interestingly, the compatibility with domesticity and flexibility for childcare are also reflected in female teachers being construed as good matrimonial spouses and mothers. Evidence shows that young women with good academic achievement tend to choose to become teachers (Shih, 1999; Yang, 2001) instead of entering other professions, such as nursing (Yang, 2007), so that female teachers are viewed as good marriage partners (Li, 2001). An interesting illustration is provided by Yang (2001, p. 123), who indicates that female teachers have become “targeted” by bachelors or by parents with single sons. This is not a new finding. In the literature of the 1980s, Wu and his colleagues (1987) reported similar findings. The subject arose in a number of my observation notes and interviews. As a single female teacher described:

When I was a novice teacher, I often heard some girl schoolmates chatting about their experience of meeting some guys whom they were introduced to date.

Another single woman agreed that single female teachers were quite favoured, and she added with embarrassment: “It happened when I was young!” One married female teacher confirmed: “Female teachers do have this advantage. Indeed!” One male teacher commented that compared to men, female teachers were more welcome in terms of marriage. As for the image of good mothers imposed upon female teachers, the answers from my interviewees exemplified the compatibility between teaching work and family responsibilities. As a single female teacher expressed, “They say the working hours of female teachers are stable, and children can be looked after.” One man related the following:

Female teachers are able to look after their families, but perhaps male teachers don’t do the same? The greatest function female teachers fulfil is family responsibilities. They have stable jobs.

Men Leaving Primary Teaching. To better understand the feminisation, it is of critical importance to take into account the consequence of men leaving primary teaching while women remain in the profession. In the literature from western societies, “for men, teaching was socially defined as a stepping stone, prior to their ‘real’ career” in some male-dominated professions (Ingersoll, 2003, p. 18). In Williams’ (1992) view, men leaving may signify the most significant explanation regarding why men are a numerical minority. The responses of prospective teachers in Liang’s (1986) study help to account for the rarity of male teachers in Taiwan. Female students in teacher training display their strong willingness to enter the teaching in the future, while a high proportion of male students have a tendency to find jobs in other occupations. Men express that a dearth of career prospects and dissatisfaction with salaries are their main reasons for leaving primary teaching (Chen, 2003; Lin, 1990). Accompanied by the economic boom in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, more options of employment with better pay and positions encouraged men, and men were more likely to abandon or not to choose teaching (Yang, 2007). Consequently, more women entered teaching. Moreover, the rarity of male teachers may be a result of men’s desire for upward mobility to distance the perception that men choosing primary teaching are regarded as having taken “a step down in status” (Benton DeCorse & Vogtle, 1997, p. 38). That is, despite staying in teaching, Chen (2003) and Yang (2007) note that male teachers expect or are expected to move upward, or “kicked upstairs” (Williams, 1992, p. 256) in their careers, for example, going for principalships.

The following excerpts from my study exemplify the tendency for men to choose to leave. A female teacher offered me an address book listing detailed information about her schoolmates, as shown in Table 4. The attrition rate of men is higher than that of women. The percentage of men leaving primary teaching is 44.4%, compared to 29.7% of women who left. Among those men, one man plainly informed me that his reasons to become a secondary school teacher were, besides higher salaries in the secondary school, to dissociate himself from the social values regarding male primary teachers as inferior. His interpretation resonates with the above arguments that women are concentrated in classroom teaching, whereas men only work as teachers for a few years and then seek a more socially prestigious position. When asked about whether more male teachers left primary teaching for other employment, the principal stated:

Speaking of my classmates, the school professors all agreed that our class had had the greatest achievements… Lots of my classmates are university professors. They are upwardly mobile. Only one half of my male classmates are still working as primary teachers. Among those quitting teaching to work in administration, one is working as a chief secretary… One is a GP, and one is an artist.

From his answers, a clear tendency emerges: for male teachers, obtaining career promotions is confirmed as a male accomplishment, so that they are more likely to quit primary teaching (Chen, 2003).

In contrast to female teachers being construed as suitable marriage suitors, Chen (2003) notes that male teachers are treated as unfavourable marital partners. As two interviewed teachers, one female and one male, remarked, it was because men working with young children were discriminated against as being “prospectless” so that even female teachers disliked choosing male teachers to be their husbands.

Women’s Increasing Independence. In the British context, Copelman (1996, p. 40) notes that “more than economic strategies motivated parents. Mothers sometimes saw their own desires for status and independence fulfilled in daughters’ careers.” She cited how a mother encouraged her daughter, describing the teaching profession as “something solid -you can’t be dismissed and it takes a pension,” even if “you marry and then you lost your husband or anything you could always go back to it” (ibid). Evidently, these comments support the importance of economic or personal independence in attracting women to teaching (Tsai, 2001). In response to Copelman’s view, coupled with the arguments of Taiwanese researchers and data collected from my fieldwork, women’s economic and personal independence resulting from a teaching job encourages women to teach and empowers them in their private lives.

Economic and personal independence may be reflected in women choosing to be single. A compelling idea is developed in relation to Britain by Bradley (1989, p. 207), who elucidates that teaching is a career “offering the chance of an independent life to any who might not wish to enter or be likely to succeed in the marriage market.” A survey conducted by the magazine Cheers in 2008 reports that in Taiwan, teaching was ranked as the profession with the second highest proportion of unmarried workers, only lower than that of people working as executives (Wang, 2008). As Tsai (2001) finds, the idea of the positive value of being single, rather than the idea of their being abandoned in the marriage market, is supported by female teachers. Independence and autonomy are also identified as the important characteristics single female teachers pride themselves in. My research evidence demonstrates that teaching work brings women financial advantages and autonomy, which enable women to remain single. As a single interviewee put it, “Traditionally, I am supposed to choose marriage as most women do. But, as a modern woman, I feel remaining single suits me.” Another single female teacher shadowed in this research highlighted the significance of financial independence combined with the stable work to her being single and her further plan for healthcare and ageing medical care. I also enquired what made female teachers chose to remain single. A female teacher bluntly related it to financial independence:

It (salary) is a big reason. Women may think: “I am in a good situation. My income is stable, and I have such a great job”… She wouldn’t lower her demands and find someone of lower educational qualifications or of poorer conditions than hers.

Bradley (1999, p. 104) has argued that in the UK, “dual-earning is becoming the social norm, replacing the expectation of breadwinner male and dependent wife.” Women see their earnings as a vital part of their independence, rather than “pin money.” Crompton (1997, p. 74) also argues:

Economic dependence is reflected in their subordinate position within the household. “Women’s liberation” and rising female employment has meant that an increasing number of women have rejected their subordinate roles and positions in relation with men.

Including the situation of married female teachers who seem to be less researched provides more overall insight into the relations between women’s independence and their jobs. In my research, women’s experiences provide examples of how teaching work matters in their independence. When asked about women’s decisions to enter teaching, personal and financial independence were both prioritised by married female teachers interviewed. One of them described her unpleasant experience before becoming a teacher:

I didn’t feel respected. My husband’s family thought it was, kind of, a waste. I have a university diploma, but just staying at home and looked after children. What a shame!

She further explained: “My salary is quite good. Basically, per month I take only a little amount of money from my husband.” Another married female teacher identified independence and equality in her household:

To be treated and treat each other with equality. In this respect, that is what I feel, no need to depend on my husband. I am independent and autonomous and can ensure the equality and fairness between him and me.

Their comments confirm Crompton’s (1997) argument that women’s contributions to household income may indicate egalitarian power relationships in the family. There are more crucial points here. Firstly, married women place high value on economic independence, whereby in their marriage, women are able to dissociate themselves from the stereotypical image of “dependent wife and breadwinner husband.” Secondly, being one of the financial supporters enables married women to earn more respect and higher status. The third is that women, consciously or unconsciously, display confidence owing to their equal contribution to their family life.