近年來各國都出現了越來越多「啃老子女」，當家中出現這類子女，中高齡父母的退休或工作決策是否會受到影響？過去已有大量文獻整理影響個人退休決策的因素，但較少有針對「啃老子女」對父母退休決策影響之研究，也未有從子女的性別差異角度來分析其對父母退休決策影響之異同，因此本研究使用中央研究院人文社會科學研究中心「臺灣社會變遷基本調查」中2006 年、2011 年、2016年3 波「家庭組」之調查結果來進行實證估計，以probit 模型來檢視55 歲以上中高齡人口的工作或退休狀態是否與「啃老子女」的出現與性別有所關聯。估計結果發現父母對於兒子和女兒的確存在不同的對待方式：「有未成年兒子」之樣本退休或不工作的可能性較低，有已婚的「啃老兒子」增加了樣本退休或不工作的可能性，而有已婚的「啃老女兒」與樣本退休或不工作的可能性則無關聯。每個家庭的價值觀都夾雜著傳統與現代思維，本研究的實證數據指出在我國現代社會中仍存在著的一些傳統思維。

Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) refers specifically to young people who have grown up and have the ability to earn a living, but are still financially unable to support themselves and need to rely on their parents. In order to continue to support a NEET at home, do parents change their retirement decision? Given the tradition of a “son preference” in Taiwan, does the sex of a NEET influence parental retirement decision differently? This paper utilizes data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey to empirically examine these questions. The estimation results show that parental working and retirement decision respond differently to the presence of an underage son and the presence of an underage daughter. The estimation results also indicate that parental working and retirement decision indeed respond to the presence of a NEET, but with different attitudes towards a NEET son and a NEET daughter. Therefore, NEETs matter, as does their gender.