眾多研究顯示，教育、職業成就與薪資所得存在高度的相關性。然而，教育透過何種途徑影響個人的職業成就和薪資水準，近年來則有兩派主要的理論說明。一是人力資本理論學者的主張，他們強調學歷文憑代表的是一種「絕對」的價值。也就是勞工增加個人的教育程度可以提高生產力，雇主即針對生產力提昇部份給予酬賞，進而影響其薪資水準，因此，薪資水準是建立在人力資本存量的積累上。二則是篩選理論，此派學者認為，學歷文憑代表的是一種「相對」價值。雇主們認為勞工教育程度排序的相對高低，代表其勞工素質之優劣，，因此，薪資水準是依據勞動市場中排序的結果來分配，與其個人生產力的表現未必有關。國內的研究大多認同人力資本理論的論述，但勞動市場中，依據「文憑」的相對高低而雇用和給薪的傳言卻也比比皆是。因此，本研究根據上述兩種理論基礎分別設計不同的迴歸模型，在1979-1996年間選擇多個年度的人力資源運用調查資料，進行勞工薪資差異之分析。研究結果顯示，本研究為篩選理論所設計的量化指標--「教育程度的百分等級」--確實能解釋篩選理論的概念，而學校教育中「絕對的教育程度」和「相對的教育程度排序」都對勞動市場產生相當的重要性。 Numerous studies have found the strong relationships among education, professional attainment, and earnings. Two main theories are reviewed as follows. The first one is human capital theory which argues the educational credential is a 「absolute」 value because education can represent a person’s productivity. And then the employers will pay workers according to their contribution. So, persons who have more amounts of human capital will have higher wages. The second one is screening hypothesis which emphasizes the educational credential shows a 「relative」 value. The employers believe that workers’ educational level is highly related to their ability/quality. And, the wage determination must therefore depend on their educational ranking but not necessarily related to their productivity. This study develops a new index for the screening hypothesis and to test the two theories mentioned above. I use the 1979-1996 Taiwan Manpower Survey Data to do the empirical analysis. The results indicate that the absolute level and the relative ranking of schooling all have significant effects on workers’ earnings in Taiwan’s labor markets.
