The Changing Role of Women’s Earnings in Marriage Formation in Japan

Abstract

Japan is one of a few developed countries in which marriage and higher earning potential among women are negatively associated. Previous studies have suggested that a traditional gender division of labor is at the root of this negative relationship, but this study suggests that the relationship is changing. In this article, I examine the latest marriage behavior among Japanese women from 1993 to 2008, focusing on the relationship between women’s economic emancipation and marriage in a gender-traditional society. Using the longest panel survey available in Japan, this study first demonstrates that the effects of women’s earnings have reversed, and are now in fact positive in the 1970s cohort. This suggests that Japanese marriage behaviors now resemble more than in the past those of Western countries, where wives’ economic contributions to the family are considered important. I argue that changes in young adults’ gender ideology have been the major force in facilitating this shift.