男女勞動市場相對表現對女性結婚率及勞動力的影響

Abstract

本文由男女在勞動市場上相對表現的觀點出發,檢驗對台灣的女性結婚率以及已婚婦女勞動力的效果。 首先,由婚姻中的“選擇權”角度來看,男性薪資不均程度上昇會提高女性願意多花時間尋找一個更好的伴侶帶來的報酬以及維持單身的“選擇權”價值。而實證結果發現,確實男性薪資不均程度提高會造成女性單身率的提高,並且這個效果在低教育程度的女性上尤為明顯,其原因可能是低教育程度的女性在經濟狀況上更需要依賴於尋找一個經濟能力好的丈夫。相對的,對受過大學以上教育程度的女性來說,仰賴於自身擁有較好的人力資本,反而不會因為男性品質的分散而提高單身機率。 另外,本文第二部分檢驗了台灣的夫妻檔中,妻子若有更高的機率在勞動市場中賺贏丈夫,反而可能導致妻子比較不願意出外工作或是減少工時的勞動力扭曲效果。原因是,在結婚前,越容易在勞動市場中賺贏男性的女性,婚後在性別角色觀念“男性應該為家庭收入的主要來源”之下,妻子反而會為了維持婚姻穩定而減少勞動力。

This paper investigates two female decision-making issues: delaying female marriage rates and labor force participation of married women in Taiwan. First, from the concept of option in marriages, higher male wage inequality leads women to prolong their marriage search duration for a possible better spouse. To the empirical results, the dispersion of male wage indeed raises the female single rates, especially for less-educated women. One possible explanation is because these less-educated women are more likely to rely on husbands’ economic performance. On the other hand, for college-educated women, comparatively high human capital makes them less reliant on searching for a better husband. In the second part of this paper, I investigate the possible distortion effect on the labor force of married women if the wife has a higher chance to earn more than her husband. The issue is that, if the chance that a woman earns more than her husband increases, she may choose to stay home or reduce her hours worked to be less threatening to her husband for maintaining a harmonious marital relationship.