工作生涯常受到家庭角色的特殊要求而中斷，是已婚婦女迥異於男性的勞動特質之一，而值得注意的是，家庭生活週期此一概念對於解釋女性勞動行為的中斷時機往往提供了重要的參考架構。本文利用1991年台灣社會變遷基本調查問卷的相關變項，依家庭發展週期的不同階段，由貫時性的角度將女性的就業型態視為一連續性的工作生涯，探討有學齡前子女的已婚掃女，如何在家庭生活週期的制約下，於工作與家庭之間取得動態的平衛(即就業型體)，並進一步討論影響女性不同就業型態的因素。主要的結論有三：第一，有學齡前子女已婚婦女四個主要的就業型態依比倒高低依序分「不中斷就業型」、「婚後中斷就業型」、「生育中斷就業」、以及「從未就業型」，共估88.1%， 其餘11.9%的婦女就業型體雖然凌亂，並不足以代表台灣已婚婦女普遍的就業型態，但卻足以說明已婚婦女家庭角色與工作角色動態組合的多變性。第二，但台灣婦女的實際的就業型態組合來看，我們發現，台灣婦女「M型」就業類型很少，顯示婦女一但脫離勞動力市場，再回到就業市場的情形並不普遍，與所謂的「理想就業」觀有相當的出入。第三，進一步討論影響女性不同就業型態的因素，我們發現，婦女個人的特性相當程度地影響了女性的就業類型，世代差異、教育程度興婦女婚前職業層級都與就業型態的選擇有密切相關，家庭背景對就業的影響，則以母親就業經驗的有無，對女性就業型態呈現顯著的影響，至於已婚婦女的家庭特質中，子女數的多寡牽制了女性就業的可能性，早婚則影響了不就業與連續就業這三組極端的就業型態。

In Taiwan, the rate of women’s labor participation is significantly lower than that of men’s, more importantly, the modes of job career also differ between sexes. The women’s roles on the family life cycle have been recognized as the primary explanatory factors for these differences. This research attempts to explore the modes of women’s job careers in Taiwan. Using the 1991 wave of "Taiwanese Social Change Surveys" data, we adopt the information regarding married female respondents' job history since their marriage and found four major modes of job careers in terms of family life cycles: never-stop, stop-after-marriage, stop-after­birth, and never on job. They are accounted for 88.1% of the sample in the study. These findings do not confirm the conventional "M" type of women's job career argued by previous studies. We further explore the explanatory factors (including individuals' traits, family background factors, and current family statuses) with the multi-nominal logistic models. Among them, respondents' schooling, mother whether on job during their childhood, number of children, marriage age, and cohorts are found strongly related to the patterns of job careers. Among women of older cohort, never-on-job and never-stop-job are the major modes of job career.