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AbstractThis paper examines the impact of having a low birth weight child on maternal labour force participation. We use the instrumental variable technique, the sister fixed‐effects model and the propensity score matching method to control for the endogeneity of child health. Using a unique national merged parent–child data set from Taiwan, the within‐sister estimates indicate that having a low birth weight child reduces female employment during the first 3 years after the birth, by 1–2 percentage points. Furthermore, the adverse employment effect is found to be particularly strong for those mothers who have an illegitimate child with low birth weight.

The paper reports the results of analyzing the effects of technological change and job risk on wage premiums in Taiwan. Using unique individual data combined with industry‐level indices of technological change and fatality rates across industries, the empirical results show that, overall, industries characterized by a higher rate of technological change or fatality pay a higher wage. However, these positive correlations are attributed to the sorting effect in which workers with some specific features choose to find jobs in industries with rapid technological change and higher job risk. Furthermore, this paper reports a positive relationship between education and wages after controlling for individual heterogeneity, showing the existence of education premium in Taiwan.

This article investigates economic factors and non‐economic factors of individual attitudes toward free‐trade agreements with different countries. Based on the Stolper–Samuelson theorem, highly skilled workers in Taiwan should be more supportive of free trade with China and less supportive of free trade with the United States than should unskilled workers in Taiwan. Using survey data from Taiwan, we find that highly educated people in Taiwan are more supportive of free trade with both the United States and China, and the effects of education are much stronger with respect to free trade with China. We also find that individual risk attitudes, national identity, and ethnicity play important roles in explaining trade preferences.

Generous health‐insurance coverage may encourage hospitals to acquire and employ more advanced medical technologies. The authors examine the effects of Taiwan's 1995 implementation of National Health Insurance on technology adoption, ownership, and use by comparing changes in adoption, ownership, and use rates by private hospitals with changes by public nonteaching and public teaching hospitals. Using random‐effect panel probit and tobit models, the article finds strong empirical evidence that third‐party payment increases the probability of technology adoption, ownership, and use. (JEL H4, I)

We examine the impact of advanced technology adoption on wage and employment structures in Taiwan. Using a survey of manufacturing firms that provides direct information on the use of advanced technologies, we find that firms using more advanced technologies pay higher wages to both non‐production and production workers and employ higher fractions of non‐production workers. Controlling for the possible endogeneity of technology adoption suggests that the estimated impact of new technologies on wages is downward‐biased and that the effect on production workers' wages may be minimal.