A Study of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Mortality and Life Table Construction

Abstract

原住民族在許多國家均屬於弱勢族群，除了社經地位偏低，在教育、福利與醫療等資源分配也普遍存在不公平的現象，我國政府一直致力於消匿弱勢團體的劣勢，其中提升族群平等、尊重各民族多元文化等政策頗多進展，在國際間具有較為正面的形象。近年來因為整體經濟成長遲緩、國民薪資倒退、生育率下降、壽命延長等高齡化問題陸續顯現，國家財政日益拮据，可能影響原住民族的資源分配。有鑑於此，本研究以編算原住民族的生命表為目標，期望做為衡量原住民族的需求與資源分配參考，以及政府政策績效的客觀指標。本文採用臺灣原住民基礎開放研究資料庫（Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Open Research Data, TIPD），依據2013年3月-2016年4月合計三年的全體原住民及人口較多的阿美族、泰雅族、排灣族三族之婚姻、居住區域、教育別等死亡率資料，並考量小區域估計方法（王信忠等 2012）編算生命表，提供各界參考。研究發現，本文結合過去歷史資訊視為參考大母體的方法，搭配Whittaker比值、Partial Standard Mortality Ratio （PSMR）等修勻方法，可以取得較穩定的統計數值。另外，根據TIPD得出的原住民0歲平均餘命，仍明顯低於內政部公佈的結果，可能因為資料使用時間、編算方法不同，未來仍需持續追蹤、查核及檢討，確定原住民族資料品質及生命表編算結果的可靠度。

Indigenous peoples are underprivileged groups in many countries, and usually have low socioeconomic status as well. Unfortunately, often there are not sufficient resources for education, welfare, and medical care to lead them to a higher socioeconomic class. Taiwan`s government has been dedicated to improving the living environment and life quality of Taiwan`s aborigines, with more public resources being allocated to the indigenous peoples. However, slow economic growth and rapid population aging further restrict the allocation of public resources. For example, Taiwan’s government has issued (or is planning) a lot of elderly-related social policies, including the New Labor Pension Act, National Pension System, and Long-term Care Insurance. We need to construct suitable measures, in addition to demographic statistics, to efficiently design public policies for the indigenous peoples. The mortality rates (and life expectancy) are good indicators for measuring life quality, and we will explore the mortality rates of Taiwanese aborigines in this study. We use data from the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples open research Data (TIPD) database maintained by the Council of Indigenous People, and focus on tribes with larger population sizes: Amis, Atayal, and Paiwan. Since the population size of Taiwanese aborigines is small, we consider graduation methods to smooth the age-specific mortality rates, including the Whittaker Ratio method, Partial Standard Mortality Ratio (PSMR), and stochastic models. We expect that the results of this study can serve as a reference for policy making for Taiwanese aborigines.