TY - JOUR
T1 - Fertility and maternal labor supply in Japan
T2 - Conflicting policy goals?
AU - Griffen, Andrew S.
AU - Nakamuro, Makiko
AU - Inui, Tomohiko
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was conducted as part of a project entitled “Analysis on Service Industries: Productivity, Economic Welfare, and Policy Evaluation” undertaken by the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). We gratefully acknowledge financial support from a Grant-In-Aid for Scientific Research (A), entitled “The Assessments of the Quality and the Productivity of Non-marketable Services” Research Representative: Takeshi Hiromatsu, No. 3243944. Andrew S. Griffen gratefully acknowledges research support from the Kagami Foundation. We thank the editor and two anonymous referees whose comments greatly improved the paper. We would also like to thank seminar participants at RIETI, the University of Tokyo, GRIPS, Seoul National University, Sogang University, the Japanese Economic Association Meetings and the WEAI as well as Masahisa Fujita, Kyoji Fukao, Yoko Konishi, Masayuki Morikawa, Keiichiro Oda, Midori Wakayabashi, Juan Pantano, Chul-In Lee, Andrew Sim, George Kudrna and Isabelle Sin, who provided extremely helpful comments and discussion. Finally, we would also like to thank the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for granting permission to use the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in the 21st Century. Any remaining errors are our own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - Using panel data on Japanese mothers, this paper estimates the impact of fertility on maternal labor supply using twins as an instrument for the total number of children. We find that having twins actually has a longer term positive impact on maternal labor force participation in Japan. To understand this result, we present evidence that the effects of age and cost of children can generate this finding, are particularly salient in Japan and differ in important ways between twins and non-twin families of the same size. Implications for fertility and labor supply policy in Japan are discussed.
AB - Using panel data on Japanese mothers, this paper estimates the impact of fertility on maternal labor supply using twins as an instrument for the total number of children. We find that having twins actually has a longer term positive impact on maternal labor force participation in Japan. To understand this result, we present evidence that the effects of age and cost of children can generate this finding, are particularly salient in Japan and differ in important ways between twins and non-twin families of the same size. Implications for fertility and labor supply policy in Japan are discussed.
KW - Fertility
KW - Maternal labor supply
KW - Twins
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jjie.2015.04.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jjie.2015.04.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84934954528
SN - 0889-1583
VL - 38
SP - 52
EP - 72
JO - Journal of the Japanese and International Economies
JF - Journal of the Japanese and International Economies
ER -