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The Political Economy of Daycare Centers in Japan
... Japan remains one of the few industrialized countries in which women's labor force trajectories continue to follow an M shape, with substantial declines in labor force participation during the prime marriage and childbearing ages (Brinton 2001). The relatively low level of labor force participation of women with small children in Japan is thought to reflect inflexible work schedules (Ogasawara 2001), limited access to high-quality, convenient childcare (Wada 2007), and husbands' limited participation in domestic work (Tsuya, Bumpass, Choe, and Rindfuss 2005) -all of which present important barriers to women's ability to balance work and family. 1 Throughout this paper, we use the term labor force "attachment" to refer generally to stable labor force participation across the life course. ...
... Furthermore, even if high-paying, attractive, full-time jobs were abundant, many married women would find it difficult to balance this kind of work commitment with family responsibilities. Two important barriers to work-family balance in Japan are the shortage of high-quality, convenient day care for pre-school age children (Wada 2007) and husbands' limited participation in housework (Tsuya, Bumpass, Choe, and Rindfuss 2005). Recent figures indicate that over 30,000 children are on waiting lists for licensed day care centers while another 200,000 are in unlicensed childcare (Boling 2007). ...
... In Japan and Italy, women typically exit the labour force at marriage or prior to the birth of their first child, and female labour force participation rates across the life course continue to be characterised by a M-shape, with substantial declines in labour force participation during the prime marriage and childbearing years (Brinton 2001;Lo Conte & Prati 2003). This pattern of intermittent employment reflects strong normative beliefs about the value of maternal care for children at the pre-schooling age (Hirao 2001;Ongaro 2006) as well as insufficient access to high-quality, conveniently located public day-care (Dalla Zuanna 2004;Wada 2007). ...
Explanations for very low fertility in ‘strong family’ countries emphasise the relatively high costs of childrearing but pay little attention to the potentially offsetting influences of distinctive living arrangements. In this paper, we use data from nationally representative surveys of married women of reproductive age in Japan and Italy to demonstrate that intergenerational co-residence and residential proximity to parents(-in-law) are positively associated with fertility intentions. We also examine ways in which relationships between living arrangements and fertility intentions may depend on family circumstances associated with the opportunity costs, psychological costs and economic costs of childrearing. Contrary to expectations, we find no evidence that intergenerational residential proximity is associated with higher fertility intentions among women for whom the opportunity costs of childrearing are thought to be the greatest. However, there is some relatively limited support for hypothesised moderating influences of the psychological and economic costs of childrearing.
... Two important factors limiting the employment of young mothers in Japan are the shortage of high-quality, convenient day care for preschool age children (Wada, 2007) and husbands' limited participation in housework (Tsuya et al., 2005). Recent figures indicate that over 30,000 children are on waiting lists for licensed day care centers while another 200,000 are in unlicensed childcare (Boling, 2007). ...
The rapid expansion of nonstandard work has altered the nature of women's employment, but previous research on married women's employment trajectories in Japan has paid little attention to the role of nonstandard work. To fill this gap, we examine how patterns of employment in regular and nonstandard positions vary by married women's socioeconomic status using nationally representative longitudinal data. Results from discrete-time competing risks models of labor force transitions indicate that university graduates have the most stable labor force attachment in that they are the least likely to move from standard to nonstandard employment and to exit nonstandard jobs. In contrast, married women with a high school degree or less are more likely to reenter the labor force to take low-quality nonstandard jobs. These results are consistent with a scenario characterized by both continuity and change. Older patterns of labor force exit and reentry, combined with the rise in nonstandard employment, are most relevant for less educated women while the emergence of more career employment opportunities is most relevant for highly educated women. Considering the role of women's income in shaping patterns of inequality, these findings have important implications for stratification in Japan.
Focusing on the influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour, this paper develops an integrated model of activity
participation and time allocation, where the former is represented based on a scobit model and the latter based on a multi-linear
utility function under the utility-maximizing principle. The integration of the scobit model with the time allocation model
is done by applying Lee’s transformation. Especially, the scobit model is adopted to relax the assumption, made in the Logit
or Probit model, that individuals having indifferent preferences over participation and non-participation are most sensitive
to changes in explanatory variables. Using a large-scale time use data (66,839 persons) collected in Japan, the effectiveness
of the proposed integrated model is empirically confirmed. It is revealed that the probabilities of participating in compulsory-contracted
activities and discretionary activities with the highest sensitivity to changes in explanatory variables are 65 and 81%, respectively.
Variances of social childcare variables explain about half of the total variance of the time use for discretionary activities;
however, for compulsory-contracted activities, social childcare variables explain only less than 1% of the total variance
of activity participation and less than 10% of total variable of time allocation.
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