The Effects of Parental Educational Expectations, Financial Burdens, and Gender Roles After the Transition to Parenthood on the Birth of Second Child

Abstract

Despite the indication that the financial burden of childrearing and gender disparity are closely linked to birth behavior, previous studies in Japan have not provided consistent results. The purpose of the present study is to investigate in what context couples choose to have their second child by focusing on life changes the couples face after the first childbirth. Data used for this study was the first ten waves of the Japanese Life Course Panel Study. A series of discrete-time hazard models was employed to estimate determinants of the second childbirth hazard for 629 married men and women who experienced their first childbirth. The results showed that high educational expectations strongly pushed down the second childbirth hazard when the husband's annual income was low. In addition, the second childbirth hazard was high when the frequency of wife-report husband's housework was high for a wife with flexible gender role attitudes and when a husband took childcare leave at the birth of first child. At the same time, simply equalizing gender roles between husband and wife does not necessarily increase fertility rates, indicating that deep-rooted gender structure in the family realm is surprisingly solid in Japan. 1 本