On the Determinants of Career Interruption by Childbirth among Married Women in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate determinants of job continuity across childbirth for married women in Japan. We use data from the Statistical Bureau's 1992Employment Status Surveyon nearly 8000 married women who were employed right before childbirth. Our estimation and simulation results suggest that education and access to child care are important determinants for a married woman to continue her work across childbirth, while high wages and short working hours help her to continue to work but are less important determinants. Also, the estimation result suggests that diversified working environments across industries and firm sizes possibly influence women's decisions.J. Japan. Int. Econ., March 1999,13(1), pp. 73-89. Tokyo Metropolitan University, Department of Economics, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-03, Japan; and University of Tsukuba, Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8573, Japan.Copyright 1999 Academic Press. Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: J22.