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Education and Marriage Decisions of Japanese Women and the Role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act

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  • Linda N. Edwards
  • Takuya Hasebe
  • Tadashi Sakai

Abstract

The Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA) of 1985 aimed to reduce gender discrimination in the labor market, especially for career-oriented jobs. This paper investigates whether this act had an unanticipated effect on women’s marriage decisions. Using micro data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers, we model women’s interrelated decisions on university education and whether to marry, focusing on whether women have married by age 32. Our results show a negative relationship between university education and marriage that is much greater for post-EEOA cohorts of women than for pre-EEOA cohorts, consistent with our hypothesis that the enhanced career opportunities associated with the EEOA stimulated women to delay or forgo marriage.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda N. Edwards & Takuya Hasebe & Tadashi Sakai, 2019. "Education and Marriage Decisions of Japanese Women and the Role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 260-292.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/702924
    DOI: 10.1086/702924
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    1. Hashimoto, Yuki & Kondo, Ayako, 2012. "Long-term effects of labor market conditions on family formation for Japanese youth," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-22.
    2. Edwards, Linda N. & Pasquale, Margaret K., 2003. "Women's higher education in Japan: Family background, economic factors, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Law," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-32, March.
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    3. Mustafa Coban, 2022. "rbicopula: Recursive bivariate copula estimation and decomposition of marginal effects," 2022 Stata Conference 04, Stata Users Group.
    4. Abe, Yukiko, 2018. "Effects of demographic compositional changes on the convergence of female participation rates," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 97-104.
    5. Julen Esteban‐Pretel & Junichi Fujimoto, 2022. "How do marital formation and dissolution differ across employment statuses? Analysis of Japanese non‐regular employees," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 425-461, December.
    6. Abe, Yukiko, 2016. "On the convergence in female participation rates," Discussion paper series. A 301, Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, Hokkaido University.
    7. Yukiko Abe, 2016. "On the convergence in female participation rates," ERSA conference papers ersa16p473, European Regional Science Association.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

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