Perception of Family and Work in Low-Fertility East Asia (SpringerBriefs in Population Studies)

This book is the first of its kind to incorporate subjective well-being (SWB) data to comprehensively explore perceptional factors that relate to fertility behavior in East Asia. The advantage of SWB data lies in the accessibility to rich information regarding perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. With this advantage, the book inquires into the perceptions toward family and work and explores the attitudes that lead to low fertility in the region. To this end, first a comparative analysis with international cross-sectional data is performed and the East Asian characteristics of family and work perceptions are documented. Then, three democracies in the region are focused on―Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan―to investigate the relationships between cultural orientations, work–life balance, and fertility outcomes with panel data. In addition, East Asian results are compared with those in India, which has also been experiencing a rapid transition from a traditional society to anindustrial one. The results support the idea that the friction between persistent gender-based role divisions and socioeconomic transformation in East Asia makes it difficult for women to balance family and work, prompting fertility decline to the lowest-low level in the region. Preface Contents Editors and Contributors 1 How Do People in East Asia Feel About Parenthood and Work? 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Literature Review 1.3 Data and Methods 1.4 Regression Results 1.4.1 Life Satisfaction 1.4.2 Financial Satisfaction 1.5 Concluding Remarks Appendix References 2 Persistent Gender-Based Division in Japan 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Related Literature 2.3 Data and Method 2.4 Preliminary Analysis 2.4.1 Happiness Profiles by Marital, Parental, and Employment Status 2.4.2 Changes in Employment Types by Age 2.4.3 Employment Types by Marital and Parental Status 2.4.4 Time Allocation by Marital and Parental Status 2.4.5 Hourly Wage and Annual Income by Marital and Parental Status 2.5 Estimation Results 2.5.1 Main Results 2.5.2 Comparison Results in Young and Old Cohorts 2.5.3 Robustness Check 2.6 Conclusions References 3 Deteriorating Family-Work Balance in South Korea: Evidence from Life and Domain Satisfaction 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Literature Review 3.3 Data and Methods 3.4 Results 3.4.1 Women 3.4.2 Men 3.5 Concluding Remarks Appendix References 4 Subjective Well-Being and Women’s Employment in Taiwan 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Employment and Fertility of Taiwanese Women and Literature Review 4.2.1 Employment of Taiwanese Women 4.2.2 Reproductive Behavior of Taiwanese Women 4.3 Data and Methods 4.3.1 Data 4.3.2 Methods 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Descriptive Analysis 4.4.2 Empirical Analysis 4.5 Conclusion References 5 The Association Between Subjective Well-Being, Parenthood, and Work of Married Women: Evidence from Longitudinal Data from Urban India 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Literature Review 5.2.1 Parenthood and SWB 5.2.2 Studies Related to SWB in India 5.2.3 Decreasing TFR and Female Labor Force Participation Rate in India 5.3 Data and Methods 5.3.1 Data 5.3.2 Methods 5.4 Results 5.5 Concluding Remarks References