We analyze the effect of childcare leave on fertility both theoretically and empirically. We show theoretically that the childcare leave system has a positive effect on fertility, and examine this hypothesis using micro data. In addition, we discuss how the effect changes with other working conditions, because the decision of working women depends not only on the childcare leave system but also on other working conditions. Existing studies show empirically that a childcare leave system has a positive effect on fertility. However, this effect has not been analyzed theoretically. Moreover, there has been no empirical study on whether women who are entitled to take a childcare leave have a higher probability of childbirth. Our theoretical model offers the following three findings: (1) Both the introduction of childcare leave and the increase in childcare leave benefit increase the probability of giving birth. (2) However, the effect is small if the working hours of full-time workers are very long or very short. When the working hours are very long, women tend to quit jobs because it is difficult to come back to work after taking a childcare leave. When the working hours are very short, women do not need to take childcare leave. (3) When the working hours of full-time workers are shorter than the optimal working hours before the childbirth, but are longer than the optimal working hours after the childbirth, reduction in working hours increases the probability of giving birth. The empirical part of the paper finds the following three points: (1) Women who are working for firms that have a childcare leave system and are entitled to take the leave have a significantly high probability of giving birth than the other women. (2) Women who work less than eight hours on weekdays have a higher probability of giving birth than women who work more than nine hours on weekdays. Furthermore, the effect of childcare leave on the probability of giving birth is larger for women whose working hours are short. (3) The above effect may be overestimated because pregnant women may have selected shorter working hours. In order to solve this problem, we used working hours of the previous year as an explanatory variable. The estimation result show that the direction of the effect of working hours on childbirth is the same as the original model, the significance level slightly declined. The first two findings are consistent with the inference from theoretical model. The effect of childcare leave on the probability of giving birth is smaller for women whose working hours are long. Therefore,in order to increase fertility, working hours of full-time workers should be reduced, or at least working hours of workers who have young children should be reduced.

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This paper analyzes the reasons behind the coresidence of unmarried Japanese women and their parents. Two kinds of samples are used to deal with the heterogeneities of both the unmarried women and their parents. In both samples, the log wage has a negative impact on co-residence. A one-percent increase in the wage decreases the probability of co-residence by 0.62 percentage points when the heterogeneity of unmarried women is taken into account. Similarly,it decreases the probability of co-residence by 0.72 percentage points when parental heterogeneity is considered. These results suggest that parents who prefer to live with their daughters induce their daughters to live with them, even if their daughters experience high offered wages. In addition,unmarried women whose parents have high incomes are less likely to live with them.

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In Japan, the fertility rate has been declining. This phenomenon is explained by the following factors. First, couples have been having fewer children; and second, the marriage rate has fallen. In this paper, we analyze the marriage rate of men. Recently, Japanese people have been marrying later, and moreover, some people remain single. The average age at which people first marry has risen in Japan. For men, this has risen by three years over the past fifty years, to 29.1 in 2002. The proportion of single men has risen dramatically. For men in their twenties, this proportion was 69.3% in 2000, double the 1950 rate. The proportion has also increased for men in their fifties; it was 12.57% in 2000.More than one in ten Japanese men are single. Marriage rates have not declined because fewer people want to marry. According to research on single men's desire for marriage, few said that they did not want to marry. The proportion of single men wanting to marry has remained steady. The purpose of this study is to explain why the marriage rate among men has declined while men's desire to marry has remained constant. Data on men and marriage from the 1986, 1991, and 1996 Surveys on Time Use and Leisure Activities were analyzed. These surveys were undertaken by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. We analyzed data on men who had finished school and were under 50 years of age. We estimated a probit model for men's marriage. The main finding of this study is that unemployed men are less likely to marry. Recently, unemployment has increased in Japan. One might conclude as a result that policies to address unemployment are needed. In contrast, the marriage rate is high for high-income men.

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Using a sample of 2,350 mothers under 40-years-old using 38 nursery schools and kindergartens in a metropolitan area in Japan, this study examined effects of mothers' childcare anxiety upon desire for children. A relation was not proved in a demographic study, although it has been pointed out that childcare anxiety is one of the factors which affect Japan's declining birthrate. Multivariate analyses undertaken for this study revealed that mothers, who have high childcare anxiety, had significantly less desire for additional children. On the other hand, the degree of a trouble experienced by mothers in childcare does not affect their will to bear children. Results suggest the importance of a policy to reduce childcare anxiety of mothers as a measure against the declining birthrate. In addition, accumulated information from studies has mainly elucidated the effects that social economic factors exert on childbearing decisions in terms of demography, but results of this study suggest that the effect of a mother's psychological condition upon the childbearing decision is not small. These results show that it is important to push forward studies to elucidate influences of psychological factors to understand recent childbearing decision-making.

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This paper first reviews recent patterns of fertility and partnership in a number of European countries and Japan. Since the late 1960s, these countries have experienced significant fertility decline. Rather than by an increased incidence of childlessness, this was driven mainly by postponement of the first birth, and a limited number of births taking place thereafter. In addition, fewer marriages took place, while the incidence of cohabitation increased, marriage took place later, and marriage became more unstable, reflected in increasing divorce rates. Next, this paper reviews two commonly used explanatory frameworks of fertility decline - on increasing opportunity costs and on value change - and concludes that they cannot account for recent phenomena such as a reversed relation between female labour force participation and fertility, and between progressiveness and fertility, or persistently high desired fertility. This is because they fail to bring in the notion of combinability. The focus of the third section of this paper is on the policy implications of bringing in this notion of combinability.

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In Japan where almost all births have been taking place in wedlock, fertility decline in the last few decades has been mainly associated with the increasing proportion of non-married women of reproductive age. Recent studies on Japanese fertility, however, increasingly focus on the new trend of fertility change, decline in marital fertility. This study investigates the effects of women's socio-economic status as measured by educational attainment and labor force participation on the first, second and third birth intensities in post-war Japan. The parity transitions from 1956 to 2001 are analyzed by employing multi-variate event-history analysis. The data I used is the National Family Research of Japan 2001 Special (NFRJ-S01), a nationally representative survey on the life course of Japanese women. The effect of the childcare support provided by grandparents who live with or close to children is also examined as an important factor in reducing the cost of children and bearing wives' duties of childcare in Japanese society. By using a rich dataset in women's life histories, we reveal the mechanism of the change in marital fertility relating to the rise in women's socio-economic statuses in the last half of the 20th century in Japan.

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