ABSTRACT
The decline in fertility is a pressing issue for most advanced economies. Previous studies on fertility have not paid enough attention to politics. This study investigates the role of political efficacy on people's fertility intentions in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore - three advanced economies with different political regimes. We also uncover how such a relationship varies depending on people's political attitudes. This study gathered data from three online surveys with a factorial experiment design in Hong Kong (N = 1895), Taiwan (N = 1971), and Singapore (N = 1985). The results of random-intercept regression analyses show that the impact of political efficacy varies depending on the context. The results indicate that political efficacy positively impacts fertility intentions in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where there are active political movements, especially among those who support democratic values. In Singapore, where there is a lack of active political movements, political efficacy has a lesser impact on fertility intentions. In modern societies with advanced economies and influential political voices from civil society, promoting citizens' involvement in policymaking may be a beneficial strategy to increase fertility rates.
ABSTRACT
Feminist scholars have argued that husband gender traditionalism is one of the root causes of spousal violence against women. Using couple-level data from Hong Kong ( N = 871 couples), this article argues that a second mechanism-couple gender value mismatch-also explains husband-to-wife physical assault. Our findings show that a husband's gender traditionalism is positively associated with husband-to-wife physical assault only when the husband is coupled with a wife who has non-traditional gender attitudes. Similarly, egalitarian gender attitudes in wives are positively associated with husband-to-wife physical assault only when a non-traditional wife is coupled with a traditional husband.
ABSTRACT
Resource theory constitutes important explanations of spousal violence in culturally diverse societies. This article extends the theory by adding several subjective indicators: husband's financial strain and the couple's appraisal of each other's financial and nonfinancial contributions to family. We examined the role of these subjective dimensions of resource in spousal violence against the backdrop of other predictors, including the husband's absolute socioeconomic resources, the wife's economic dependence, and relative resource differences between the husband and wife. The findings not only partly support absolute and relative resource theories but also suggest the salient role of subjective indicators of resources on husband-to-wife physical assault.
