| dc.description.abstract | Similar to other advanced countries, employment structure changes substantially over the past four decades in Taiwan, from the industrial to the service sector. At the same time, the speed of population aging increases rapidly in Taiwan. This paper examines the impact of population aging on employment share among industries. Based on the employment share panel data at county’s level, calculated from the “Manpower Utilization Survey”, this study estimates the impact of population aging on employment share by the employment share panel data fixed effect model. Owing to the endogeneity between employment share and population aging, this paper also proposes plausible instrumental variables and uses the two-stage least square estimation for analysis. In addition to the analysis on the changes in the employment share of the three major sectors, this study explores the impact of population aging for each one-digit industry. The structural changes in employment share for counties classified as aging societies, are particularly analyzed.
The empirical results show that aging is negatively related to the employment shares of the primary sector. Despite of its nonsignificant effect on the secondary sector, population aging decreases Manufacturing employment shares, but increases that of the Construction industry. For the tertiary sector, population aging leads to higher employment shares, in particular, for industries of Business, Finance, Insurance and Real estate, Public Administration, and Social and Personal services. The escalation of population aging intensifies the employment shares reduction in Manufacturing; yet, it increases the employment share of Business and Public Administration, and Social and Personal Services. Moreover, middle- and old-aged workers tend to work in the sector of agriculture when they increases their participation in the labor market.
Based on the empirical results, this paper suggests that the governmental authority ought to value the changes in the employment structure and the effect of labor supply changes on the changes, especially when the aging process amplifies. Enhancing the rate of labor force participation rate in younger worker and the middle- and old-aged people may mitigate the problem of the rapid shrink in employment in Manufacture, and that of the rapid expansion in Public Administration, Social and Personal Services industries. Furthermore, it is important for the governmental authority to realize that the labor force in agriculture sector might age quickly. This paper thus suggests the governmental authority promoting Agricultural sector’s machinery and equipment investments, so as to improve the working environment and occupational injuries for the middle- and old-aged workers. | en_US |