Emiko Usui

The Effect of Pension Reform on Pension-Benefit Expectations and Savings Decisions in Japan

Using the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), which is a new Japanese panel survey of people aged 50 and over, we find that more Japanese in their early 50s expect their level of public pension benefits to decline compared with those in their late 50s and early 60s. We also find that recent pension reforms that raised the pensionable age affected the Japanese population by increasing the age at which they expect to claim their benefits by almost the exact same amount as the increase in the pensionable age. The reforms have also decreased the population’s expectations about receiving public pension benefits, although this effect is not necessarily significant. We also find evidence that anxiety about the public pension programme’s future increases private savings.

Gender Occupational Segregation in an Equilibrium Search Model

This paper develops an equilibrium search model to explain gender asymmetry in occupational distribution. Workers’ utility depends on salary and working hours, and women have a greater aversion to market hours than men. Simulations indicate that women crowd into shorter-hour, lower-paying jobs than men. If employers discriminate against women, offers are tailored more toward men’s preferences; employers require longer working hours, and fewer women work at these jobs. Similarly, if women have a disutility factor in their utility toward positions with a higher proportion of men, fewer women work at these jobs. In both cases, gender segregation is reinforced

Informal parental care and female labor supply in Japan

ABSTRACT Using the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement, Japan’s first globally comparable panel survey of the elderly, we estimate the effect on female employment in Japan due to the provision of informal parental care. We observe that informal parental care has little impact on female employment, after controlling for endogeneity of informal care or individual unobserved time-invariant heterogeneity. This finding is consistent with those observed in Europe and the US, underscoring a limited association between care and work in Japan, which is facing ageing at the fastest pace among advanced economies.

Are Japanese Men of Pensionable Age Underemployed or Overemployed

We investigate how Japanese men aged 60-74 adjust their workforce attachment after beginning to receive a public pension. Men who were employees at age 54 gradually move to part-time work or retire after beginning to receive pension benefits; those who continue working are more likely to be underemployed. Men self-employed at age 54, however, neither retire nor reduce their working hours even after beginning to receive pension benefits; these men are more likely to be overemployed. In contrast, U.S. men retire or move to part-time when they first claim Social Security; those who continue working as employees after Social Security starts are unlikely to be either over- or underemployed. Therefore, unlike U.S. men, Japanese men are not choosing the optimal pensionable age and labor hours to maximize their intertemporal utility.