Paper
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Cultural Issues with Adult Men and Women
The Relationship Between Country of Residence, Gender and Cultural Values in Midlife Australian and Taiwanese Men and Women
Shiu-Yun Fu, RN1, Debra Anderson2, and Mary Courtney, PhD1. (1) School of Nursing, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, (2) Centre for Nursing Research, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Learning Objective #1: understand the changing dominions of differing health services and strategies from around the world.
Learning Objective #2: understand better the implementation of policy procedures within the Australian and Taiwanese perspective.
Australian and indeed western cultures are generally believed to hold values which are individually oriented while Taiwanese and Asian cultures are believed to be exhibit values that are culturally collective in nature. The objectives of the study were to explore the effect of country of residence and gender on cultural values in midlife Australian and Taiwanese men and women.

Data was collected from a cross-sectional, supervised self-administered survey using census data and a probability proportional sampling (PPS) strategy on a general population of men and women aged 40-59 years old who live permanently in Taiwan and Australia. The sample consisted of 278 Australians and 398 Taiwanese men and women. Measured variables included cultural values, including: horizontal individualism, horizontal collectivism, vertical individualism and vertical collectivism, gender and country.

Analysis showed that country of residence does have an impact on cultural values, specifically the areas of horizontal or vertical individualism and collectivism with significant differences seen between midlife Australian and Taiwanese men and women (F=213.68, p<0.001). The findings from this study have found that Taiwanese midlife men and women value vertical cultures, and tend to accept hierarchical status easily, and consequently appear to be more competitive with each other. This finding is important as this behaviour may negatively affect a person’s health and well-being. In contrast Australian midlife men and women value horizontal cultures more which may acknowledge equality as a given right sharing of resources. This may produce better health outcomes and consequently an enhancement of quality of life. In view of an expected and phenomenal rise in the number of midlife people and thus elderly populations in both Australia and Taiwan, further investigation would be useful in determining how cultural characteristics affect peoples’ quality of life from a cross-cultural perspective.

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