Naohiro Ogawa

Care of the elderly in Japan: changing norms and expectations

Analyse des normes liees au devoir filial envers les parents âges au Japon et des attentes des parents âges vis-a-vis des enfants : evolutions et tendances actuelles

Family Structure, Home Time Demands, and the Employment Patterns of Japanese Married Women

A recent (1990) national survey is used in an econometric analysis of Japanese womens hourly pay and employment patterns. It confirms many results from Western industrial countries but also indicates the important influence of Japans unique family structure, the persistence of multigenerational households, on married womens employment patterns. Younger married women are more likely to take paid employment in such households, particularly on a full-time basis, than in nuclear family households. This appears to reflect in part the child-care role played by the womans parents or parents-in-law.

Values and fertility change in Japan.

This paper analyses how value change and economic and social change have jointly affected fertility in Japan since 1950, and especially since 1973 when fertility resumed declining after some 15 years at near-replacement level. The resumption of fertility decline since 1973 has been driven primarily by underlying economic and social changes. Value change has tended to lag behind fertility change, and this lag has tended to be larger in Japan than in other advanced nations, primarily because underlying economic and social conditions have evolved more rapidly in Japan, and because it takes time for values to adjust to changes in underlying conditions. Because of Japans high degree of cultural homogeneity, values tend to be widely and quickly shared, so that under certain conditions value change tends to occur in spurts. In Japan, many of the more important value changes affecting fertility in recent decades are bound up with major educational and job gains by women, which have led to greater economic independence and more emphasis on values of individualism and equality between the sexes.

The resumption of fertility decline in Japan, 1973-92

This article analyzes the fertility decline in postwar Japan especially since 1973 and the demographic and socioeconomic factors contributing to it. The analysis based primarily on period parity progression ratios suggests that Japans fertility decline since 1973 has occurred mainly because of postponement of marriage and first birth and declines in ratios of progression to marriage and first birth. It is shown that womens rising educational attainment plays an important role in inducing the new marriage and fertility pattern. The effect of womens education is associated with a number of related socioeconomic changes including rising wages of women and higher opportunity costs of marriage and childbearing as well as changes in values. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA) (EXCERPT)

Japan’s changing fertility mechanisms and its policy responses

This paper discusses Japan’s decline in fertility over the past 50 years. The change in Japan’s postwar fertility is analysed using formal demographic tools such as parity progression ratios and decomposition methods. The analytical results show that before the oil crisis of 1973, the reduction in marital fertility played a dominant role, while the delayed timing of marriage has been a principal factor since the mid-1970s. The delayed timing of first and second births has also played a relatively important role in determining actual fertility levels in the 1990s. The paper examines various socio-economic factors contributing to these demographic shifts over time in postwar Japan. A number of policies and programs implemented over the past decade by the Japanese government to boost fertility are briefly described, together with their limitations.

The Family, the Market, and the State in Ageing Societies

Using a mixture of economic and demographic analysis, this book studies the changing patterns of family formation over the last twenty years. A strength of the book is the data and analysis included on Japan and Western countries, which have previously been less researched than the developing world. The first part explores the effects of economic considerations on family formation. Topics covered include the correlation between levels of cohabitation and personal economic resources and modelling the changes in optimal timing of childbearing in Britain, using the earnings profile of the mothers. The second part deals explicitly with the impact of demographic patterns on economic behaviour, and especially with the distribution of economic resources as a smaller working population supports a growing population of the elderly. The data used is from Sweden, Japan, and France, and the economic models used find that lower consumption and greater inequality is the likely implication for the future.

Fertility Change in Contemporary Japan

The authors examine the striking decline in Japans birthrate in light of the rapid urbanization, industrialization, and socioeconomic development experienced by the nation since World War II.

The Effect of Mandatory Retirement on Earnings Profiles in Japan

Using data from the Japanese Basic Survey on Wage Structure for 1981 and 1986, the authors estimate the effect of the age of mandatory retirement on the rate of growth of earnings with job tenure in Japan. The results indicate that an increase in the age of mandatory retirement reduces the rate of growth of earnings. This finding suggests that the existence of long-term employment contracts is a more likely explanation of the steep earnings-experience profiles of Japanese workers than is the specific human capital model.

Human resources in development along the Asia-Pacific Rim

This collective work is the product of a three-year research project carried out at Nihon University in Japan; the project culminated in an international symposium held in 1989. The focus was on the role of human resource development in the economic progress being achieved by the Asian countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. Separate attention is given to demographic trends in the region changes in labor force participation education and health and aging. (ANNOTATION)

Transitions From Career Jobs to Retirement in Japan

Most Japanese workers are required to retire from their career firm by age 60. Yet the labor force participation rate of older men in Japan is the highest among industrialized countries, and most Japanese express a strong desire to continue working past age 60. One explanation for this paradox is that many firms reemploy their own retirees or provide them with assistance in finding new jobs with their subsidiaries or client firms.