Breastfeeding practices and parental employment in Japan

Much research shows that breastfeeding provides short- and long-term health benefits for both mothers and their children. However, few studies have yet investigated the factors which may promote or inhibit breastfeeding practices in Japan. To fill this research gap, this paper uses data newly gathered in 2012 on breastfeeding initiation and duration for each child of each mother, which enable us to estimate mother fixed-effects models that control for unobserved differences among mothers. Compared to mothers who leave their jobs after childbirth, mothers who return to work within a year after childbirth do not significantly differ in breastfeeding initiation but have a breastfeeding duration which is shorter by 1.654 months. On the other hand, when fathers work under a flextime system after childbirth, breastfeeding initiation is higher, and the duration is longer by 4.418 months. Therefore, letting fathers work under a flextime system would help promote breastfeeding practices in Japan.     

Older workers’ employment in dynamic technology changes

Discrimination against older workers and the higher barriers for entrance to the workforce that these workers face are well documented in the literature. This situation becomes even worse when technological changes take place. In this paper the different responses of younger and older workers to those technological changes were analyzed, and it was revealed that older workers can be severely harmed when such changes occur. It was found that providing a subsidy for older workers could aid in reducing the unemployment among older workers, together with increasing growth of the economy and decreasing the inequality of income distribution.     

The response of Japanese wives’ labor supply to husbands’ job loss

This paper examines how Japanese wives react to their husbands’ involuntary job loss and tests the existence of complementarity of a wife’s labor supply to her husband’s. Utilizing panel data on Japanese households from 1993 to 2004, we found that wives’ labor supply is stimulated when husbands suffer involuntary job loss. The detailed statistics show that not only do working wives raise their labor hours but also nonworking wives begin to participate in the labor market. The added worker effect is evident during the period of job insecurity in Japan following the mid-1990s.     

School‐to‐Work Transition of Career and Technical Education Graduates

This study analyzed the career development of career and technical education (CTE) high school graduates during their school‐to‐work transition, specifically their adaptability in the face of barriers. Forty graduates (22 men, 18 women) from working‐class backgrounds participated in baseline surveys at graduation and phenomenological interviews 1 year postgraduation. Primary themes were job loss altered career plans, whereas relevant jobs propelled career development; limited access to college constrained options, whereas college experience expanded options; graduates experienced the loss of education‐related support, and CTE served as a backup plan. Teachers and school counselors emphasized organizational barriers including limited staffing for upper level math courses and inconsistent workplace partnerships.     

Using education to reduce the wage gap between men and women

Using a theoretical model we analyzed the decision of men and women to acquire human capital in the form of extra education. We found that women tend to seek higher levels of education than men in an attempt to reduce the wage gap between themselves and their male peers. We also showed that for women with strong abilities, this strategy is an effective one.     

A Bayesian Learning Coefficient of Generalization Error and Vandermonde Matrix-Type Singularities

The coefficient of the main term of the generalization error in Bayesian estimation is called a Bayesian learning coefficient. In this article, we first introduce Vandermonde matrix type singularities and show certain orthogonality conditions of them. Recently, it has been recognized that Vandermonde matrix type singularities are related to Bayesian learning coefficients for several hierarchical learning models. By applying the orthogonality conditions of them, we show that their log canonical threshold also corresponds to the Bayesian learning coefficient for normal mixture models, and we obtain the explicit computational results in dimension one.     

Do You Enjoy Giving More or More than Others? The Positionality of Voluntary Contributions

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study examines voluntary contributions from a microeconomic perspective, testing a distinction that has been...     

Dynamic DEA: A slacks-based measure approach

In data envelopment analysis, there are several methods for measuring efficiency changes over time, e.g. the window analysis and the Malmquist index. However, they usually neglect carry-over activities between two consecutive terms and only focus on the separate time period independently aiming local optimization in a single period, even if these models can take into account the time change effect. In the actual business world, a long time planning and investment is a subject of great concern. For these cases, single period optimization model is not suitable for performance evaluation. To cope with long time point of view, the dynamic DEA model incorporates carry-over activities into the model and enables us to measure period specific efficiency based on the long time optimization during the whole period. Dynamic DEA model proposed by Färe and Grosskopf is the first innovative contribution for such purpose. In this paper we develop their model in the slacks-based measure (SBM) framework, called dynamic SBM (DSBM). The SBM model is non-radial and can deal with inputs/outputs individually, contrary to the radial approaches that assume proportional changes in inputs/outputs. Furthermore, according to the characteristics of carry-overs, we classify them into four categories, i.e. desirable, undesirable, free and fixed. Desirable carry-overs correspond, for example, to profit carried forward and net earned surplus carried to the next term, while undesirable carry-overs include, for example, loss carried forward, bad debt and dead stock. Free and fixed carry-overs indicate, respectively, discretionary and non-discretionary ones. We develop dynamic SBM models that can evaluate the overall efficiency of decision making units for the whole terms as well as the term efficiencies.     

A population size estimate of the finless porpoise,Neophocaena phocaenoides, from aerial sighting surveys in Ariake Sound and Tachibana Bay, Japan

We estimated the population size of the finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) in Ariake Sound and Tachibana Bay of western Kyushu, southwestern Japan, from aerial sighting surveys using line transect methods. All 12 surveys were conducted from May 1993 to May 1994 (8 in Ariake Sound and 4 in Tachibana Bay). In addition to these, 14 surveys were also carried out to obtain information on porpoise occurrence in Tachibana Bay (5 surveys) and in neighboring Sumo Nada (5) and Yatsushiro Sound (4). In Ariake Sound, 225 porpoise groups (369 animals) were detected during all flights totalling 1,694.4 km. In Tachibana Bay, a total of 997.8 km was surveyed and 55 groups (290 animals) were sighted. However, no sightings were recorded in Sumo Nada (distance searched = 148.7 km) and Yatsushiro Sound (208.4 km). In Ariake Sound, few sightings were recorded from waters shallower than 5 m in depth. In Tachibana Bay all animals were detected from waters of less than 50 m depth. The population size was estimated as 1,983 animals in Ariake Sound (95% CI = 1,382-2,847), 1,110 in Tachibana Bay (95% CI = 642-1,920), and 3,093 in the 2 waters (1.3 individuals/km², 95% CI = 2,278-4,201).     

Reservation Wages and the Unemployment of Older Workers

Our purpose is to examine the level of reservation wages among older unemployed (45+), and investigate what happens to the level of reservation wages as the length of unemployment increases. Using data from questionnaires completed by unemployed, we examined the reservation wages of 364 individuals and asked whether they would be willing to compromise in terms of their occupation, profession or geographic location to find a job. 112 of the participants responded to two questionnaires over a three-month period to determine the changes in their expectations over time. Additionally, we conducted qualitative interviews with 10 unemployed. We found that older people experienced longer periods of unemployment, and had a greater willingness to reduce salary expectations. The study establishes an innovative connection between older unemployed, reservation wages and the duration of unemployment, showing that higher reservation wages among older unemployed is the cause of prolonging their unemployment.