父母死亡對子女婚姻決策的影響--台灣實證研究

Abstract

本文透過研究父母死亡前後20季子女結婚機率的變化，以識別出父母死亡對子女婚姻決策的影響。本文主要的目標為透過台灣實證資料嘗試區分子女因婆媳問題消失獲得的優勢與繼承父母遺產獲得的優勢兩者對婚姻決策造成的影響。本文使用台灣財政部財政資訊中心的行政資料，以父母死亡年份在2005年至2020年的有台灣戶籍者作為研究樣本，聚焦於父母死亡當下年齡為25歲至35歲的青年子女的初婚行為。本文主要的研究方法為以事件研究法為核心的線性機率模型，並且將研究樣本與使用粗化精確配對法建構出的控制組相互比較以進行穩健性測試。本文對青年子女的初婚行為主要有以下兩點發現：一、母親死後兒子的結婚機率增幅會明顯高過女兒的增幅以及父親死後兒子和女兒的增幅，因此婆媳關係很可能對於青年子女的婚姻決策具有一定的影響力。二、父母生前是否持有房地產對於子女的結婚機率變化沒有顯著的影響，因此遺產的繼承很可能對於青年子女的婚姻決策不具影響力。

This study aims to identify the effects of parental death on offspring's marital decisions by analyzing changes in their marital probability 20 quarters before and after the parental death. Specifically, we attempt to distinguish the effects of two factors: the disappearance of mother-in-law problems and the inheritance of deceased parents' real estate. We utilize administrative data from the Financial Information Agency, Ministry of Finance, Taiwan. Our sample consists of Taiwanese adult children whose parents died between 2005 and 2020, and we particularly focus on those who experienced parental death between the ages of 25 and 35. We employ event study analysis using the linear probability model to analyze the data, and we conduct a robustness check by comparing our sample with a control group constructed through the coarsened exact matching method. We reveal two main findings regarding the marital behavior of offspring. Firstly, the probability of getting married significantly increases for bereaved sons following their mothers' deaths, compared to bereaved daughters after their mothers' deaths, as well as bereaved sons and daughters after their fathers' deaths, which suggests that mother-in-law problems are likely to influence the marital decisions of offspring. Secondly, the value of the real estate owned by the deceased parent does not have a significant impact on the probability of getting married for the bereaved offspring; and hence, the inheritance shock appears to be less correlated with the marital decisions of offspring.