生育率持續下跌將造成人口年齡組成嚴重老化，如何促使台灣地區生育率適度的回升，已成為政府及人口學家們關心的焦點。欲使生育率回升，除了鼓勵民眾生育、訂定婚姻移民政策之外，提高兩性有偶率也經常被提出討論。欲提高有偶率，則必須了解有偶率的變化內容與方向。本文主要使用行政院主計處1978至2002年人力資源調查資料，建構出年期別、性別、年齡別、教育別之各種婚姻狀況表，並利用標準化粗率差異的方法，將「人口結構變化」及「教育結構變化」對有偶率的影響呈現出來。研究結果發現：人口年齡組成的影響方向對兩性有偶粗率影響一致，均隱藏了有偶率的真實下降幅度。換句話說，人口年齡結構老化使未婚人口的「能見度」降低，可能讓社會誤以為有偶率並沒有下降，或者感覺不到實際的下降幅度。資料同時顯示女性年齡組成對女性有偶率的影響程度較男性大，未來兩性壽命差距可能逐漸擴張，女性的人口年齡組成將較男性更為老化，對於有偶率的隱藏效果也將更大，我們必須注意此一變化，以免忽略了可能的潛在問題。在教育結構方面，男性1990年以前的影響並不明顯，1990年代之後影響力才逐漸顯現，可能與高等教育擴張有關。女性的影響力則散布於整個期間（1978-2002），顯示女性教育地位取得的穩定成長趨勢。女性教育結構的變遷相當不利於粗有偶率的變化，也就是說，如果女性的教育結構沒有擴張的話，有偶率就能夠維持過去的水準，此一結果恐怕是教育政策制定者所始料未及的。就教育程度別來看，低教育程度的男性和高教育程度的女性之有偶率下降幅度最大，顯示傳統「門當戶對」、「男高女低」的婚配方式仍然被普遍奉行。 The fertility rates have been below replacement level for more than 20 years in Taiwan. Recently, it is worse that total fertility rates have reached the lowest low level. For example, it was 1.34 in 2003 and 1.23 in 2004. It will result in an inevitable rapid population aging, so that the relative officers and demographers are now engaged in a task: how to motivate people to give birth. One of the strategies is encouraging getting married. However, we don’t know exactly how marriage rates decline though we do know they have declined. Current rate of married is affected by variations in age and educational structures. And the processes of specific marriage rate compose marital status. Therefore, we applied a standardization procedure to decompose the effects of age structure and educational structure on proportions of state “current of married” from 1978-2002, by using data retrieved from the Surveys of Manpower which were conducted by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan. Results from the standardization analyses indicated that the change of age composition from 1978 to 2002 has a leveling effect on the proportion current of married for both males and females. In other words, population aging has hided the decrease of marriage rate and make those who are current of married more visible. In the meantime, the change of educational structure from 1978 to 2002 has a magnifying effect on the proportion current of married for only females. Marriage rate appears to decrease among the less-educated men and the better-educated women, parallel with an expansion of higher education. So the effects of change of educational structure on proportion current of married are different for men and women.
