Stress, Child Care, and Fertility

In economically developed countries, an aging society with fewer children is progressing. Especially, Japan’s aging society is rapidly progressing. There, child care policies are actively provided to mitigate effects of the rapidly aging society. Child care services have increased. Female labor participation has also increased. As the empirical data show, female labor participation is positively correlated with fertility, as shown also by results from OECD countries. However, our analyses show that the fertility rate cannot always be raised by child care service improvement, although child care services can raise the female labor participation rate. Additionally, our analyses consider work balance and the fertility rate. A fixed working time for the father reduces female labor participation and increases child care time of the mother.