The socialization of at-home elderly care and female labor market participation: Micro-level evidence from Japan

This study takes advantage of the introduction of Japan's public long-term care insurance scheme in 2000 as a unique natural experiment to evaluate how the socialization of long-term care affects female labor participation. Our difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the introduction of the scheme had no effect on female labor market participation in 2001, but a large and positive effect in 2002. The new long-term care scheme raised the probability that female caregivers were employed by 8 percentage points and, on average, the number of days per week and hours per day worked by female caregivers by 10-20 percent age points. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.