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This study examines the patterns of educational attainment and first employment among young Japanese, and their effects on the likelihood of first marriage, using micro-level data drawn from a national family survey in 2004 and its follow-up in 2007. Attainment of higher education increased dramatically in postwar Japan, and such gains were especially notable for women. Meanwhile, regular employment has decreased, and temporary employment has risen rapidly among young Japanese since the 1990s. The study reveals that obtaining regular employment as the first job strongly enhances the likelihood of first marriage for both genders although the marriage-enhancing effect is stronger for men than for women. First entry to the labor market as a temporary worker also significantly diminishes the likelihood of first marriage for men. Like other industrialized economies in Asia, improving educational attainment is found to be a factor causing declining first marriage among young Japanese women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION After more than 40 years of very low birth rates, Japan now has one of the oldest populations in the world. Sustained low birth rates mean that there are few children in the population and eventually few working-age adults to drive economic growth and support the relatively large proportion of elderly, who were born in a previous era when fertility was higher. But why are young Japanese having so few children? One reason appears to be the uncertain employment prospects for young men, which make them poor candidates for marriage. The persistence of strong gender differences in housework and childcare also make the "marriage package" unattractive for Japanese women. Over the years, the Japanese government has introduced and expanded several programs to encourage young Japanese to marry and have children, including parental leave, monetary assistance to parents, and highly subsidized childcare. So far, however, these programs appear to have had very little impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of the relationship of fertility between successive generations over the course of a 19th-century frontier fertility transition. Intergenerational event histories are used to explore the relationships between mothers' and daughters' completed family size. Results suggest that daughters' fertility levels are responsive to their mothers' relative fertility and age at marriage (as compared with mother's contemporaries). Effects of exposure to a number of younger siblings, controlling for cohort biases, are also examined. A multivariate proportional hazard analysis of daughter's age at marriage and parity-specific birth intervals demonstrates the direct and indirect effects of intergenerational fertility associations on fertility timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]