臺灣各縣市人口結構與社會福利支出集中度之分析

Population Structure and the Concentration of Social Welfare Spending across Cities in Taiwan

臺灣邁入高齡化社會後，人口結構的改變逐漸成為政府政策制定的重要考量，而社會福利資源也成為政府處理區域發展失衡問題時的工具之一。此現象顯示社會福利資源在縣市間的配置狀況及相對集中度之決定因素，具有研究之必要性。本文援用區位商數之概念，根據資源總量與分配狀態，並以人口與都市計畫區面積份額為比較基礎，計算出縣市合併前之二十三縣市政府的社會福利支出集中商數後，得知縣市之間的社會福利集中度甚為不均。再依研究需求採用一般化動差法進行實證分析，探討人口結構、就業結構、財政條件等總體經濟變數對於社會福利資源配置的作用。結果顯示人口結構是影響地方政府社會福利分配集中程度的因素，尤以老年人口比率的增加，顯著提高了縣市政府社會福利集中度，而政府的財政地位則對社會福利資源配置的均等化發揮了調整的效果。 The thesis investigates the distribution equality of local government social welfare expenditure between the 23 cities and counties in Taiwan. A location quotient is employed as an index to assess the concentration quotient of social welfare resources. And the panel data model and generalized method of moments (GMM) are adopted in the empirical studies. As the total social welfare expenditures are equalized by the population share and the share of squared measure of urban areas individually, the results show a distinct welfare sharing inequality between local governments. The empirical results also show that the population structure, especially the elderly share of the local area is the important determinants for the distribution of the social welfare spending. Moreover, the fiscal composition is the important element with regard to balancing the social welfare distribution between local governments for the cities level.