Educational Differentials and Mechanisms in Married Women's Labor Force Transitions in Japan

This study examines several potential mechanisms underlying the recent emergence of positive relationship between educational attainment and married women’s labor force attachment in Japan. We use data from a longitudinal survey collected in the 1990s and early 2000s, a period of substantial change in the context of women’s work, to estimate discrete-time competing risk models for married women’s labor force transitions including labor force exit, transitions between standard and non-standard employment, and reentry to the labor market. Study results indicate that recently emerging educational differentials in married women’s labor force participation in Japan are mainly due to the fact that highly educated women are more likely to stay in the labor market (including standard and non-standard employment), not because they are more likely to return to the labor force. Study findings also show that it is those with the lowest educational attainment who are more likely to reenter the labor force usually in nonstandard jobs with few benefits and little room for advancement. In addition, women’s own income, work orientation, and job characteristics such as occupation, firm size, and public sector employment play important roles in mediating relationships between education and married women’s labor force transitions. These findings provide evidence that married women’s labor force participation in Japan is being differentiated, at least by educational levels and suggest that emerging educational differentials in women’s work in Japan may contribute to increasing household income stratification, as observed in the U.S. Increases in female labor force participation have been most pronounced among highly educated women in the U.S. and other industrialized countries (Cancian, Danziger, and Gottschalk 1994). In contrast, the labor force participation of married women in Japan has been distinguished by relatively small socioeconomic differentials (e.g., Brinton 2001). Many studies have found that married women’s employment in Japan is inversely related to educational attainment (Brinton 1993; Choe, Bumpass, and Tsuya 2004; Ogawa 1996) and husbands’ earnings (Higuchi 1995). This negative relationship between education and married women’s work, combined with strong educational homogamy, has played a role in limiting family income inequality and stratification in Japan (Kohara 2001) while women’s employment has been linked to increase in family income inequality in the U.S. (Cancian and Reed 1999; Levy 1998). However, rapid socioeconomic changes that occurred in Japan in recent years appear to be changing the context of married women’s work. For example, changes in labor market conditions during and after the economic recession in 1990s (e.g., increasing labor market segmentation and growing share of non-standard employment), implementation and strengthening of public policies supporting women’s employment (e.g., Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Child Care Leave Law), and attitudinal changes (e.g., less support for the strong gender division of domestic work and increasing preference for women’s employment) may have contributed to changes in the nature of the relationship between education and women’s labor force participation. Indeed, recent studies have documented a positive association between higher education and continuous employment among married women (e.g., Nagase 2003; Sakai 2004; Raymo and Lim 2011) and stronger labor force attachment among women with high earning husbands (e.g., Kohara 2001; Manabe 2004; Ohtake 2005). In light of this evidence, it is unfortunate that we know very little about the underlying mechanisms linking educational attainment and married women’s labor force attachment.