An Economic Analysis of Fertility, Market Participation and Marriage Behaviour in Recent Japan

• Main Authors: LEE, David K. C., GAN, Chin Lee
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1989
• Subjects: Economic surveys; Labor supply; Labor market; Fertility; Housing surveys; Marriage; Japan; Asian Studies; Human Resources Management; Labor Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3369; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/4368/viewcontent/EconomicAnalysisFertilityJapan_1989.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This is the 1st attempt in modelling fertility, labor force participation and marriage rate using Japanese data. The authors use Butz and Ward's model and extend it to a simultaneous equation system as in the case of Winegarden. Although the estimates obtained by Full Information Maximum Likelihood and Three Stage Least Squares of the model are statistically significant, some of the signs of the estimates are not consistent to a priori predictions. The crux of the model is that an increase in the wages of men has an unambiguous positive effect on fertility, whereas an increase in wages of women may not lead to higher fertility due to the dominance of substitution effect. But the issue of whether there are discriminatory employment practices and cultural pressures on the participation of women in the labor force, raised by the results obtained can only be answered using a larger set of data or with the help of panel data.