大石 亜希子

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.Studies in Western countries have shown that part-time work is associated with lower work–family conflict and higher job satisfaction, especially in the case of women. The present study addressed three questions: (1) are part-time workers more likely to report a lower level of work–family conflict and higher levels of job satisfaction and life satisfaction than those who work full-time? (2) Does having children or living with an older person who needs to be cared for affect individuals’ work–family conflict, job satisfaction and life satisfaction? (3) Are gender-role beliefs associated with work–family conflict, job satisfaction and life satisfaction? To answer these questions, joint ordered probit models were estimated using a merged dataset on workers in four East-Asian societies: Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The outcome measures used in the analyses were: work–family conflict, family–work conflict, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Controlling for personal and family attributes, part-time work was negatively associated with work–family conflict and job satisfaction, but not with life satisfaction. Although having children was not related to outcome measures, living with a frail elderly person significantly increased work–family and family–work conflicts. Married women who accepted gender-role beliefs were less likely to have work–family conflict.

In the present study we examine how social security programs have affected the labour force participation of the elderly over the past 40 years in Japan. Using publicly available data, we construct incentive measures for inducing retirement, to ascertain actual changes in the generosity of the programs and to explore the impact of the reforms on the labour supply of the elderly. We show that the labour force participation of the elderly is significantly sensitive to the measures, and our counter-historical simulations show that social security reforms since 1985 featuring reduced generosity have significantly encouraged the elderly to remain in the labour force longer.

In this paper, we examine the impact of the '1.03 million yen ceiling,' a means-tested transfer scheme for secondary earners in Japan, on earnings inequality of married women. We find that the decline in earnings inequality among married women between 1993 and 2003 is attributable to the increase in the number of wives with low earnings and the decrease in the number of wives with zero earnings.

千葉大学公共研究センター21世紀プログラム「持続可能な福祉社会に向けた公共研究拠点」

In this article, we empirically examine the impact of wives' participation in the labor market on family earnings inequality, by paying attention to the dynamic aspect of labor supply by wives. We find that wives' earnings have a moderate equalizing effect on family earnings inequality. Unlike in the United States, cohort effects in earnings inequality are relatively small in Japan. The correlation between husbands' and wives' earnings is small for almost every cohort in our cross-sectional data. The analysis of panel data suggests that married women's employment has a strong persistence, which has a significant impact on the level of family earnings.

本稿は母親達に対するフォーカス・グループ・ディスカッション(FGD)及び独自に実施したアンケート調査の結果から、保育サービス需要における質と価格の関係を分析した。主な発見は以下の通りである。第1に、大卒以上で賃金水準が高い母親ほど保育の質に対するこだわりは強く、良質な保育サービスを受けるために高い保育料を支払ったり、転居したりするといった経済的な負担を厭わない傾向が観察された。第2に、大卒者とは対照的に短大卒以下の専業主婦グループは、保育料に敏感な上、保育サービスを利用する際に利便性を重視する傾向がみられた。第3に、こどもの年齢や性格によって、需要する保育サービスの内容や質の評価は異なっていた。

わが国では,介護のための専門的な施設の整備が遅れており,介護サービスのかなりの部分を医療機関が供給してきた。また投薬,注射,検査など出来高払いの対象となる医療の過剩供給も従来から問題にされてきた。しかし,病院が直面する経済的なインセンティブは,ここ数年間の医療保険制度のドラスチックな改革て激変しつつあり,これに病院は急速に対応しつつある。<BR>まず,1)出来高払いの対象となる病院の収入は,入院期間に応じて急速に逓減するンステムに変えられ,長期入院は減りつつある。さらにわれわれの研究では, 2)1990年の診療報酬改定によって導入された定額払い方式は, 従来の出来高医療の持っていた過剰な供給のバイアスを除去したことを見た。しかし,このことはわが国の長期ケア制度が,新たな三つの問題に直面していることを意味する。第一に,現行の制度では,出来高制と定額制の入院期間に関するインセンティブが整合的でないため,早晩,定額制度施設の不足は必至である。第二に,定額制の施設における医療の質をどうモニターするか確立しなければならない。第三に,ケアの客観的なニーズに応じて,定額制の施設が十分なケアを供給できるようなインセンティブメカニズムを確立することである。