丈夫失業對婚姻穩定度與生育決定之影響

Abstract

本文使用1999年至2005年臺灣的合併行政資料，來探討丈夫失業如何對婚姻穩定度和生育計畫造成影響。資料來源是將內政部的結婚檔與離婚檔和出生檔串連，再與經濟部的關廠檔、行政院勞委會的失業給付檔和勞工保險檔合併。由於丈夫失業和離婚與生育間的內生性問題，可能會導致估計結果偏誤，所以本文參考已往文獻，利用經濟部關廠檔的失業資料來做為丈夫失業的衡量。另外，我們也區分了丈夫失業的原因，觀察是否不同的失業原因會透過不同的途徑影響婚姻穩定度和生育決定。 我們使用correlated random effect probit模型和fixed effect logit模型估計丈夫失業對離婚與生育的影響。實證結果顯示，丈夫失業後，會增加離婚機率和降低生育機率。若進一步區分丈夫不同原因的失業，發現丈夫經歷非因關廠的失業中，會顯著地提升離婚機率並且減少生育機率；而丈夫若為因關廠的失業時，雖然也會對離婚和生育有所影響，但是估計結果不具統計顯著性。我們認為這是因為在非因關廠的失業中，會額外傳遞出訊息反映丈夫經濟能力以外的個人特質，而這些特質相較於失業帶來的所得衝擊，對家庭關係的影響更為重要。

The analysis of this paper is based on a unique Taiwan administrative data set, which consists of information from various public administrative registers over a six-year period from 1999 to 2005, to examine the impacts of husband’s job displacement on family dissolution and fertility decisions. In order to correct for the possible endogeneity of unemployment, we use the data of job loss owing to plant closure as exogenous measurement of husband’s job loss. Furthermore, we also distinguish reasons of job displacement to investigate whether there are different transmission channels through which job displacement affects family behaviors. We use correlated random effect probit model and fixed effect logit model to estimate respectively the impacts of husband’s job loss on family dissolution and fertility decisions. Results show that couples with the husband experiencing job loss are more likely to dissolve and decrease fertility in the following years. Displacement not due to plant closure has significantly positive effects on marriage dissolution and significantly negative effects on fertility decisions. However, the effect from job loss due to establishment closure is less and statistically more insignificant. We suggest that displacement not due to plant closure captures negative income shocks and may additionally convey new information on the male partner’s characteristics other than future earning capacity. Husband’s non-economic suitability, compared with negative income shocks, is more important in determining marriage stability and fertility decisions.