A Dynamic Decision Model of Marriage, Childbearing, and Labor Force Participation of Women in Japan

Atsuko Ueda
Additional contact information
Atsuko Ueda: University of Tsukuba

Labor and Demography from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper empirically examines the life-time joint decision problem of marriage, childbearing, and labor force participation for women in Japan, motivated by the recent decrease in the number of marriages and the total fertility rate. Using the 1993-95 Japanese Panel Surveys of Consumption, the structural estimation result of a dynamic decision model suggests that women benefit from labor force participation, and that this gain exceed financial benefits from earnings. However, the probability of finding full-time work within a year for housewives or part-time workers is estimated as less than 20%, and is even lower for less-educated women. As regards family formation, utility gains and losses from the first child are insignificant or rather negative, those from the second child are significantly positive, those from the third or subsequent child are generally insignificant. Utility gains and losses from marriage are significantly negative if one leaves out financial advantages gained from the husband's earnings. The estimation using a recent sample suggests that the sum of the estimated values of marriage and two children as a typical family unit is negative for women in the labor force.

Keywords: dynamic programming; female labor supply; fertility; marriage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2000-10-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Note: Type of Document - Scientific Word; prepared on PC; to print on (PDF); pages: 29 ; figures: included. 29 pages, PDF, figures are included.
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/lab/papers/0004/0004007.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0004007

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Labor and Demography from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA (volker.schallehn@ub.uni-muenchen.de this e-mail address is bad, please contact repec@repec.org).