Taipei Times
Date: Nov 13, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

The participation of local governments is required to implement public childcare that covers children from birth to age 12, and 16 candidates running for mayor or county commissioner have signed letters committing themselves to pushing through needed policies once elected, the Childcare Policy Alliance said yesterday.

Among the 16 candidates who signed the commitment letters were Taipei mayoral candidates Pasuya Yao (姚文智) of the Democratic Progressive Party , Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and incumbent Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).

The alliance presented two line graphs — the rate at which women participate in the workforce and the rate at which children from three months to five years old are cared for outside of the home — with rates listed for Taiwan, Denmark, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

The first graph showed that Taiwanese women aged 25 to 29 had the highest rate of workforce participation among the compared nations, but that from age 30 to 65, the rate steadily dropped off, reflecting the number of women leaving jobs to care for children due to insufficient public childcare, Alliance convener Liu Yu-hsiu (劉毓秀) said.    [FULL  STORY]