Gender inequality is a legacy of pre-modern societies which has proven remarkably durable throughout the world. In particular, the status of women in education and the workplace has always been that of second-class citizens, with little effort made to provide them with the same range of opportunities as males until comparatively recently in modern history. In Taiwan’s case, the cause of gender equity was given a considerable boost in 1968 by the Nine-Year Compulsory Education Policy (NYCEP) which, although it made no specific gender provision, levelled the playing field for girls in both further levels of education and in the workplace in a time of great social change. The contention of this study is that changes in the social status of working women are reflected in the roles they are able to adopt within their societies and that the increased proportion of Taiwanese women in the high-status profession of teaching is indicative of an increasingly positive social view of women as participants in society. This study aims to investigate the effects of the NYCEP on women’s participation in the teaching profession, using data on overall teacher numbers to show that it heralded an increasingly equitable employment environment for women in Taiwan.

Gender inequality is a legacy of pre-modern societies which has proven remarkably durable throughout the world. In particular, the status of women in education and the workplace has always been that of second-class citizens, with little effort made to provide them with the same range of opportunities as males until comparatively recently in modern history. In Taiwan’s case, the cause of gender equity was given a considerable boost in 1968 by the Nine-Year Compulsory Education Policy (NYCEP) which, although it made no specific gender provision, levelled the playing field for girls in both further levels of education and in the workplace in a time of great social change. The contention of this study is that changes in the social status of working women are reflected in the roles they are able to adopt within their societies and that the increased proportion of Taiwanese women in the high-status profession of teaching is indicative of an increasingly positive social view of women as participants in society. This study aims to investigate the effects of the NYCEP on women’s participation in the teaching profession, using data on overall teacher numbers to show that it heralded an increasingly equitable employment environment for women in Taiwan.

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