禁止胎兒性別篩檢政策對臺灣新生兒性別比的影響

The Impact of Prohibited Sex-selective Abortion Policy on Taiwan’s Newborn Sex Ratio

徐品慈(Pin-Tzu Hsu)

指導教授 ： 江淳芳

國立臺灣大學/社會科學院/經濟學研究所/碩士(2015年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2015.10539

摘要

根據2014年CIA, WorldFactbook的估計，臺灣在2014年的新生兒性別比是1.07，顯示出生性別比偏頗的問題仍存在，每年有許多女嬰持續受到性別篩選而消失。為了解決失衡的出生性別比問題，國民健康局自2010年5月起開始有了加強稽核的行動，除了建立出生性別比監測機制以掌握各接生院所新生兒性別比，並且也實際針對出生性別比例居前10％及25％的醫療院所及接生醫師進行實地的稽查與輔導，相較於以往，此政策更具備強制性的監督與管制，而本研究主要想要分析在該政策的執行下，對於臺灣新生兒性別比是否有顯著的改善。
利用簡單差異的分析，研究結果顯示，高出生性別比醫療院所(簡稱為H型醫院)的男嬰比例在政策後有相對顯著的下降，除此之外，當偏好男嬰的父母所在的地區有較高比例的前50% H型醫院時，政策的實施使得這些父母面臨較高的性別篩選成本提升，限制了他們在尋求產前性別篩選管道的機會，因而反映出臺灣出生性別比的改善，然而，當設定H型醫院為前10%及前25%時，卻沒有這樣的現象發生。由於對出生性別比造成影響的變數仍有很多，因此我們無法斷然解釋H型醫院男嬰比例的下降，全是起因於政策所引發的效果，若存在除了政策以外的變數，同樣會促使H型醫院的男嬰比例有相對顯著的下降，則對於政策是否使得這些醫院的出生性別比問題有所改善，仍有待保留。

關鍵字

性別比 ； 出生性別比 ； 男嬰比例 ； 性別篩選 ； 產前 ； 臺灣

並列摘要

According to CIA, WorldFactbook, Taiwan’s newborn sex ratio in 2014 is around 1.07, which reveals that the problem of high newborn sex ratio still exists today and female infants constantly disappeared due to sex selection year after year. In order to solve the biased newborn sex ratio problem, NHI implemented a Prohibited Sex-Selective Abortion Policy in May, 2010. Apart from building up a monitor system to control every hospital’s newborn sex ratio, they specifically take more inspection and guidance on those with top 10% and top 25% high newborn sex ratio’s hospital and obstetricians. Compared to the government’s former policies, this one seems to be more compulsory. And this research’s main idea is to test whether this policy significantly improve Taiwan’s newborn sex ratio problem.
With the analysis of simple difference, the result shows that hospitals with high newborn sex ratio do have a significant decline in their proportion of men to total infants. Besides, for areas with higher proportion of H-type hospitals, the implementation of this policy forces parents in this area with son preference to face higher cost of prenatal sex selection, resulting in a decline of men to total infant ratio. However, this consequence only exists in the top 50% H-type hospitals, when we set up H-type hospitals as top 10% and top 25% high, there is no significant difference. Since there are still many factors that may cause an effect on newborn sex ratio, we cannot explain the decline of male to total infant ratio in H-type hospitals is completely the contribution of the policy. That is, whether this policy can improve Taiwan’s newborn sex ratio problem still remain further discussion.

並列關鍵字

Sex ratio ； Newborn Sex ratio ； Infant ； Sex Selection ； Prenatal ； Taiwan

參考文獻

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