Part-Time Work vs. Full-Time Work of Married Women in Japan

In this paper, we attempt to resolve the drawbacks in previous studies of the labor supply of women in Japan. We hypothesize here that the response to the socioeconomic factors that influence the decision to work varies among different groups of women, and we estimate separately the labor supply of part-time employed, and that of full-time employed, married women by using the 1980 Population Census data for Japan.The major finding is that there is a clear difference in the labor supply behavior of women who are employed part time and those who are employed full time. For example, the estimated elasticities are noticeably different for the following factors: women's wages, men's wages, the unemployment rate, the industry-mix variable, andthe provision of day-care centers and nursery schools. Our empirical results suggest that, in public policy implementation, giving special attention to the specific characteristics of the labor market of women in Japan would be useful and important in understanding the different responses to the factors influencing the decision to work among the different socioeconomic groups.