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Care of the Elderly and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Japan

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Ageing in Advanced Industrial States

Part of the book series: International Studies in Population ((ISIP,volume 8))

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of caring for the elderly on the labour force participation of middle-aged women in Japan. The analysis circumvents the problem of two-way causation by using measures of health of the elderly in place of measures of care of the elderly. A preliminary analysis of components of healthy and unhealthy life expectancy is followed by a multivariate analysis, which is restricted to cases where the elderly parent coresides with a married daughter or daughter-in-law. Results indicate that the probability that the daughter or daughter-in-law works is about 75% regardless of level of disability of the elderly parent. A disaggregated analysis shows, however, that serious disability sharply increases the probability that the daughter or daughter-in-law works full-time and sharply decreases the probability that she works part-time. We conjecture that the increase in full-time work that occurs when the elderly parent is seriously disabled occurs because serious disability often results in long-term hospitalization, thereby creating a need to work full-time to help defray the costs of long-term hospitalization while simultaneously freeing the daughter or daughter-in-law to work full-time.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The NUJLSOA ascertained for every person in the household whether he or she was capable of caring for someone else.

  2. 2.

    At the time this paper was written, the exchange rate was 117 yen to the U. S. dollar.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nihon University Population Research Institute, College of Economics, Nihon University, 1-3-2 Misaki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-8630, Japan

    Naohiro Ogawa (Director, Population Research Institute, Professor)

  2. Population and Health Studies, East–West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96848-1601, USA

    Robert D. Retherford (Coordinator and Senior Fellow)

  3. Advanced Research Institute for the Sciences and Humanities (ARISH), Nihon University Population Research Institute, ARISH, 12-5 Goban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-8251, Japan

    Yasuhiko Saito (Professor)

Authors
  1. Naohiro Ogawa
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  2. Robert D. Retherford
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  3. Yasuhiko Saito
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Correspondence to Naohiro Ogawa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biology, Stanford University, Herrin Labs 454, Stanford, 94305-5020, USA

    Shripad Tuljapurkar

  2. Population Research Institute, Nihon University Tokyo, Misaki-cho 1-3-2, Tokyo, 101-8360, Japan

    Naohiro Ogawa

  3. Canada Research Chair in Comparative, Public Policy, University of Calgary, University Dr. NW., 2500, Calgary, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Anne H. Gauthier

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Ogawa, N., Retherford, R.D., Saito, Y. (2010). Care of the Elderly and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Japan. In: Tuljapurkar, S., Ogawa, N., Gauthier, A. (eds) Ageing in Advanced Industrial States. International Studies in Population, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3553-0_10

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