關廠失業對個人薪資與健康的影響

THE EFFECTS OF JOB DISPLACEMENT ON WAGE AND HEALTH

本文以台灣2000年因關廠而失業者為實驗組，利用其未失業的手足為控制組，採用「差異中的差異」（）結合家庭固定效果（）的方法來探討失業對再就業薪資與健康的影響。本文主要的貢獻在於採用失業者及其手足的樣本來控制個人先天稟賦（基因）與後天環境（家庭、成長背景）因素、可減輕失業對薪資或健康估計時潛在的內生性問題。實證結果發現，失業的男性勞工在失業後1-2年內的平均薪資比起未失業的兄弟明顯低了5%，這種薪資上的壓抑效果在失業後的2-5年內，仍持續存在；相反地，女性勞工若失業後立即找到工作，則對其再就業的薪資無太大的影響。整體而言，失業對薪資的負面衝擊以男性受害較深，而擁有大學以上教育程度則有助於減緩此一衝擊。本文並無發現失業會顯著提高住院機率，但因住院係一稀少事件，非一良好的健康代理變數，未來尚待取得更好的健康指標，來全面性地驗證失業對個人健康的影響。

Based on a sample of displaced workers and their non-displaced siblings from Taiwan, we use difference-in-differences with family fixed effect approach to examine the impacts of job loss on wages and health. The main contribution of this study is to use non-displaced siblings of displaced workers as a control group, which enables us to control for the unobserved genetic and family background characteristics and thereby mitigate the endogeneity problem of displacement. The monthly wage of displaced male workers reduces 5% within 1–2 years after plant closure, compared with that of their non-displaced brothers, and the effect is persistent within 2–5 years after displacement. In contrast, no significant wage loss is found for displaced female workers who were reemployed immediately after plant closure. Overall, the effect of wage reduction is more pronounced for men and lower-educated workers. We do not find evidence that job loss increases the probability of hospitalization. As hospitalization may not be an appropriate proxy for health, the availability of good measures of health status is needed for future research.