Social Norms on Working Hours, Work-Life Balance, and Fertility Choice

Kohei Daido and Ken Tabata

No 108, Discussion Paper Series from School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University

Abstract: This paper studies the role played by the social norms of working hours in a household labor- leisure and fertility decision model. We suppose that social norms enforce workers not to deviate from the ideal level of working hours, which depends on past and current observations of working hours in workplaces. We show that the social norms lead to multiple equilibria: one with long working hours and a low fertility rate and another with short working hours and a high fertility rate. Our results may help to explain the long working hours and low fertility rate that are observed in Japan.

Keywords: Fertility; Work-life balance; Social norms; Peer effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J22 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2013-09, Revised 2013-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-evo, nep-hrm, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kgu:wpaper:108

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