An Empirical Analysis of Retirement and Marriage in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors influencing changes in marriage following retirement in Taiwan. The data used are from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Middle Aged Elderly in Taiwan. The Weibull models are used to estimate the hazard rates of divorce or separation after retirement. The factors of unobserved heterogeneity are also examined for the influences of divorce or separation after retirement. The main empirical results find that Mainlanders, Aboriginals, people with better educational attainments, people with poor health or poor relationship with family have higher hazard rates of divorce or separation than others. In contrast, people with more children and persons with higher income have lower hazard rates of divorce or separation than others. After considering unobserved heterogeneity, most estimated coefficients on the marriage hazard regressors are larger in magnitude than the corresponding coefficients in the reference model.

Share and Cite:

W. Hung, "An Empirical Analysis of Retirement and Marriage in Taiwan," Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol. 3 No. 5C, 2013, pp. 9-17. doi: 10.4236/tel.2013.35A3002.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] M. Schoenbaum, “The Health Status and Labour Force Behaviour of the Elderly in Taiwan,” Research Report, University of Michigan, Ann Arbour, 1995, pp. 95-32.
[2] C. Chen, “Health Status and Health-Care Utilisation of the Elderly in Taiwan,” In: C. Chen, A. I. Hermalin, S. Hu and J. P. Smith, Eds., Emerging Social Economic Welfare Programs for Aging in Taiwan in a World Content, The Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 1999, pp. 279-303.
[3] M. Chang, “A Longitudinal Study on Living Arrangements of the Elderly in Taiwan,” In: C. Chen, A. I. Hermalin, S. Hu and J. P. Smith, Eds., Emerging Social Economic Welfare Programs for Aging in Taiwan in a World Content, The Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 1999, pp. 43-64.
[4] A. I. Hermalin, C. Roan and M. Chang, “The Economic Status of the Elderly in Taiwan,” In: C. Chen, A. I. Hermalin, S. Hu and J. P. Smith, Eds., Emerging Social Economic Welfare Programs for Aging in Taiwan in a World Content, The Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 1999, pp. 157-203.
[5] R. Yu and Y. Chang, “The Retirement Behaviour of Public Sector Employees in Taiwan,” Working Paper, The Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 2004 (in Chinese).
[6] W. Hung, “Duration Analysis for Retirement Decisions in Taiwan,” Journal of Risk Management, Vol. 10, No.3, 2008, pp. 259-278.
[7] P. Moen, J. E. Kim and H. Hofmeister, “Couples' Work/ Retirement Transitions, Gender, and Marital Quality,” Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 1, 2001, pp. 55-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3090150
[8] M. Szinovacz, “Couples’ Employment/Retirement Patterns and Perceptions of Marital Quality,” Research on Aging, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1996, pp. 243-268. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0164027596182005
[9] D. Vaus and Y. Wells, “I Married Him for Better or for Worse But Not for Lunch: Retirement and Marriage,” The 8th Australian Family Research Conference, Melbourne, 12-14 February 2003, pp. 1-22.
[10] W. S. Shaw, T. L. Patterson, S. Semples and I. Grant, “Health and Well-Being in Retirement: A Summary of Theories and Their Implications,” In: M. H. and V. B. V. Hasselt, Eds., Handbook of Clinical Geropsychology, Plenum, New York, 1998, pp. 383-409.
[11] A. M. Pienta, “Partners in Marriage: An Analysis of Husbands’ and Wives’ Retirement Behavior,” The Journal of Applied Gerontology, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2003, pp. 340-358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0733464803253587
[12] D. B. Smith and P. Moen, “Retirement Satisfaction for Retirees and Their Spouses: Do Gender and the Retirement Decision-Making Process Matter?” Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2004, pp. 262-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192513X03257366
[13] T. Lancaster, “The Econometric Analysis of Transition Data,” Cambridge University, New York, 1990.
[14] D. W. Hosmer, S. Lemeshow and S. May, “Applied Survival Analysis: Regression Modelling of Time to Event Data,” 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470258019
[15] M. A. Cleves, W. W. Gould and R. G. Gutierrez, “An Introduction to Survival Analysis Using Stata,” 3rd Edition, Stata Corporation, College Station, 2008.
[16] P. Diamond and G. A. Hausman, “Individual Retirement and Saving Behaviour,” Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 23, No. 1-2, 1984, pp. 81-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0047-2727(84)90068-9
[17] W. Hung, “An Economic Analysis of Retirement Decisions in Taiwan,” Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Economics, Finance and Business, University of Durham, Durham, 2009.
[18] W. Hung and S. Ho, “Duration Analysis of Marriage among the Middle Aged and Elderly in Taiwan,” The Empirical Economics Letters, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2009, pp. 79-87.
[19] J. P. Klein and M. L. Moeschberger, “Survival Analysis: Techniques for Censored and Truncated Data,” 2nd Edition, Springer Science Business Medin, Inc., New York, 2005.

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.