Husband's Childcare and Additional Birth : A Comparative Analysis of Five Developed Countries

Abstract

As is broadly known, the contribution by Japanese husbands toward childcare and housework is much smaller than that among other developed countries. Recently however, as more wives have taken jobs outside the home, it has been suggested that husbands'lesser contribution to childcare is one cause of declining fertility in Japan. This possibility is symmetrical with increases in fertility rates after 1980s in Nordic and English-speaking countries. This study explores the effects in five countries of the husband's participation in childcare on willingness to bear additional children. We use the 2005 international comparative survey on fertility decline conducted in the United States, France, Sweden, Japan, and Korea. Results from these data suggest that the husband's involvement in childcare has a significant positive effect on the willingness to bear more children in Sweden, Japan, and Korea. This effect is, however, observed only among wives in Sweden and only among husbands in Japan and Korea. No effect is observed in the United States and France. It is probable that these results are caused by the difference in couple's evaluation of the husband's childcare.