Work histories and home investment of married Japanese women

This research investigates how education for women is related to the social institutions of work and family in Japan. By focusing on married women's decisions regarding their paid employment and parental behaviors, this thesis examines how the human capital of Japanese women is utilized in the workplace and in family spheres. The data come from the School District Survey and College Alumnae Survey, which were administered in 1995 among 2,345 women in Nagoya, Japan. Multivariate analyses were used to estimate the effects of women's educations on: (a) labor-force participation behavior, (b) allocation of time and psychological resources in children's educations, and (c) gender-specific allocation of time and psychological resources in children's educations.;The analyses of labor-force participation behavior show that the effects of women's educations on the risk of leaving the labor force is not constant across time. In the earlier stages of occupational careers, women with higher educations are more likely to leave the labor force after their job rewards and husbands' incomes are controlled. In the later stages, however, highly educated women tend to stay in the labor force longer than their less-educated counterparts. The positive effect of education on the rate of labor-force exit in the earlier stages is due partly to the invariant timing of marriage and childbirth across educational levels, which affect highly educated women more strongly.;A mother's education has a strong positive effect on the amount of time and psychological resources allocated for her child's education. Girls receive more time resources from their mothers in terms of extra-school educations, but less psychological resources in expectations for educational attainments and for social/economic success. A mother's educational level moderates the effect of a child's gender; highly educated mothers expect equal levels of education for daughters and sons. On the other hand, the gender effect that favors boys for future social/economic success is constant across mothers' educations and family income levels.;These findings suggest the prevalence of a gender-specific pattern of human capital development within the family, which ties into the gender stratification in education and the labor market in Japan.