Abstract
This dissertation is composed of three empirical studies on the labor outcomes of female college graduates in Taiwan and the related discussions. The first chapter introduces the motivation and the main results of the three studies. The empirical data used in the dissertation come from the Taiwan Higher Education Dataset (THED), with chapter 2 describing this unique dataset. In chapter 3 we investigate the effects of participation in physical activities during college life on starting salary. We find students who participate in physical activities could earn about 3.1% more than those who do not participate in physical activities. In addition, not only is the intensity of participation in physical activities important, but the persistence of physical activities also plays a critical role. In chapter 4 we provide empirical evidence about the influence of working while in school on the time it takes to find the first job and the starting salary. Our results show that work experience indeed brings benefits to students’ future labor outcomes (including both the time to find their first job and the starting salary). Moreover, working off-campus is a better choice relative to working on-campus, and those working during the semester seem to find their first post-graduation job quicker as well as receive about 5% higher earnings. When we consider two different school types (colleges/universities and institutions of technology), the results present that student employment has more influential effects upon those who graduated from institutions of technology. In the final chapter we examine the relationship between employability and labor market performance and find that the variables of employability skills indeed do explain some wage variation. Employability skills show more diverse effects across occupational earning levels. However, no one characteristic of employability skills is valuable for all occupations; that is, the effect of self-assessed employability skills varies across occupations.