子女性別對父母離婚率之影響：以台灣行政資料為例

Abstract

長女父母相較長男父母是否有較高的離婚風險？本論文透過分析1998年到2006年之間的台灣行政資料來回答此問題，我們發現長女父母相較長男父母的確面臨了較高的離婚風險，但是此差異只在長女年齡為22到26歲之間時發生。這個只在長女特定年齡發生的現象和文獻中認為「父母對小孩性別的偏好和小孩年齡無關」的重男輕女假說、資源限制假說衝突，也和性別選擇假說相悖。根據1996第一季和2006年第一季的「臺灣社會變遷基本調查家庭組」的問卷資料分析結果，本研究認為「成年長女家中相對緊張的家庭關係」是最可能解釋這一現象的原因。

Does gender of the first-born child affect parents' hazard of divorce? Using administrative data from Taiwan, I find that parents of a first-born daughter do have higher risk of divorce when the first-born daughters reach 22 to 26 years old, compared with parents of a first-born son. These age specific outcomes do not support the hypotheses that the higher divorce rates are driven by parental rational expectations over parents' preferences or family resources constraint. Also unlikely are explanations based on survival advantage of female infants in uterus. My findings align with the hypothesis that unpredictable relationship changes in families with adult daughters may play a role, and evidence from survey data seems to support this hypothesis.