While childrearing in marriage is the predominant norm, and fathers help financially support the family,Taiwanese men contribute very little time to domestic labour (Yu 2009: 19). And while Taiwan and its East Asian neighbours are known as having strong developmental welfare states that have successfully built up the human capital of their labour forces in service to the needs of economic growth, there is very little public provision of care outside of investments in education and health (Kwon 2005, Pierson 2004, UNRISD 2010). A legacy of income equality and limits on immigration have meant that working women cannot rely on a supply of lower-income rural or migrant women for help with care. The care sector is small, market-based and largely unregulated, most parents depend on older kin for help when they need it (Budig and Misra 2010, Yu 2009).