Household Composition, Extended Kinship, and Reproduction in Taiwan: 1965-1985

Co-residence of a married couple with the husband's parents continues to be an important aspect of family life in Taiwan. This form of household extension continues despite Taiwan's industrialization and convergence with a Western model of consumption, and despite the increase in the prevalence of nuclear households over the past twenty years. Increases in nuclear units are associated primarily with declines in proportions living in households that are extended both laterally and across generations, while the percentage living with a parent in a stem household has declined only modestly since 1973. In all, declines in co-residence notwithstanding, in 1985 nearly half the respondents resided in extended units. In 1985, as in 1980, a history of residence in an extended household was related to more traditional reproductive behaviour.