The Effect of Work-family Balance Policy on Childbirth and Women's Work

Masaaki Mizuochi and 正明 水落

No 575, Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: This study examines the effect of Japan's 2005 work-family legislation?the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children? on childbirth and women's job continuity. This Act requires firms to support their employees in bearing and rearing children. In particular, it helps working women to continue their careers, thereby reducing the opportunity cost of having children and boosting childbirth. Although the Act requires large firms to support their employees in this regard, it merely recommends that smalland medium-sized firms do so. In consequence, it potentially has greater influence on employees of large firms than on those of small- and medium-sized firms. Using this quasiexperimental condition, we determine the Act's effect by comparing data from before and after its implementation in firms of various sizes. Difference-in-differences estimation results demonstrate that the Act has a positive effect on the joint probability of childbirth and women's job continuity

Keywords: Childbirth; Women’s job continuity; Work-family balance policy; Quasi-experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J18 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hituec:575

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