According to predictions made by the National Institution of Population and Social Security Research, the elderly (i.e., people over age 65) will exceed 25% of the total Japanese population by the year 2015. This implies a relative decline in the younger workforce. Encouraging the elderly to participate in the labor market is thus an important task of government.
Although the employment rate of Japanese males aged 60–64 had been declining before 1988, it demonstrated moderate growth between 1988 and 1993 (Figure 1). Determining the reasons for this upswing and applying them to the country’s employment policy will increase the participation of this segment of the population in the workforce.
Previous research on employment of the elderly has found that
- The public pension benefit has a negative effect on workforce participation.
- Health status has a positive effect (i.e., a person who is in good health is likely to work).
- Wage rate has a positive effect.
Although these studies examined the effects of public pensions, most of them only examined the periods of unvarying decrease in the employment rate and unvarying increase in the public pension benefit. This means that the effects of other factors might be overridden by the effects of public pensions. Yashiro, Ohishi, and Futagami (1995) investigated employment during the period 1988–93. Using the Employment Status Survey of the Elderly (ESSE) of 1988 and 1992, they concluded that increased employment was the result of changes in the preferences of the elderly, not changes in external factors such as public pensions.
In this study, I have utilized the pooled micro data from the Employment Status Survey of the Elderly 1983, 1988, and 1992. As this period includes 1986, when the Japanese public pension system was totally reformed, it is possible to distinguish between the effects of trends over time and the impact of public pensions. I have also incorporated household structure in the model to explain the employment behavior of elderly males. Although previous studies on the behavior of females used household structure as an explanatory variable, this study seeks to determine the effects of household structure on elderly males.
Download
PDF Ebook The Effect of Household Structure on the Employment Behavior of Elderly Male Workers
