China's marriage market and upcoming challenges for elderly men

Fertility decline has fueled a sharp increase in the proportion of'missing girls'in China, so an increasing share of males will fail to marry, and will face old age without the support normally provided by wives and children. This paper shows that historically, China has had nearly-universal marriage for women and a very competitive market for men. Lower-educated men experience higher rates of bachelorhood while women favor men with better prospects, migrating if needed from poorer to wealthier areas. The authors examine the anticipated effects of this combination of bride shortage and hypergamy, for different regions of China. Their projections indicate that unmarried males will likely be concentrated in poorer provinces with low fiscal ability to provide social protection to their citizens. Such geographic concentration of unmarried males could be socially disruptive, and the paper’s findings suggest a need to expand the coverage of social protection programs financed substantially by the central government.Population Policies,Population&Development,Demographics,Gender and Law,Gender and Health

Carbon Pricing in Japan

This open access book evaluates, from an economic perspective, various measures introduced in Japan to prevent climate change. Although various countries have implemented such policies in response to the pressing issue of climate change, the effectiveness of those programs has not been sufficiently compared. In particular, policy evaluations in the Asian region are far behind those in North America and Europe due to data limitations and political reasons. The first part of the book summarizes measures in different sectors in Japan to prevent climate change, such as emissions trading and carbon tax, and assesses their impact. The second part shows how those policies have changed the behavior of firms and households. In addition, it presents macro-economic simulations that consider the potential of renewable energy. Lastly, based on these comprehensive assessments, it compares the effectiveness of measures to prevent climate change in Japan and Western countries. Providing valuable insights, this book will appeal to both academic researchers and policymakers seeking cost-effective measures against climate change

Carbon Pricing in Japan

This open access book evaluates, from an economic perspective, various measures introduced in Japan to prevent climate change. Although various countries have implemented such policies in response to the pressing issue of climate change, the effectiveness of those programs has not been sufficiently compared. In particular, policy evaluations in the Asian region are far behind those in North America and Europe due to data limitations and political reasons. The first part of the book summarizes measures in different sectors in Japan to prevent climate change, such as emissions trading and carbon tax, and assesses their impact. The second part shows how those policies have changed the behavior of firms and households. In addition, it presents macro-economic simulations that consider the potential of renewable energy. Lastly, based on these comprehensive assessments, it compares the effectiveness of measures to prevent climate change in Japan and Western countries. Providing valuable insights, this book will appeal to both academic researchers and policymakers seeking cost-effective measures against climate change

Reproductive Contributions of Foreign Wives in Taiwan: Similarities and Differences among Major Source Countries

In light of the entrenchment of sub-replacement fertility and the sharp increase in the stock of foreign wives in Taiwan in recent years, this research studies the reproductive contributions of Taiwan’s foreign wives from the top five source countries (China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines), based mainly on an application of a multinomial logit model to the micro data of the 2003 census of foreign wives. Our main findings are as follows. First, the overall fertility level of the foreign wives was probably somewhat higher than that of the native-born women and definitely lower than the replacement level. Second, among the five nationalities, those from China were much less reproductive than those from the other countries, mainly because the former were more prone to (1) having a rather old marriage age, (2) having a very large spousal age gap, (3) being separated or divorced, (4) having their current marriage being their second marriage, and (5) having a veteran as the husband. Third, among the four Southeast Asian nationalities, those from Indonesia and the Philippines were more reproductive than those from Thailand and Vietnam. This contrast was a muted reflection of the fertility difference in countries of origin. Fourth, for every nationality, marriage duration and marriage age were the most powerful explanatory factors and must be included in the model to avoid getting misleading estimated coefficients of other less powerful explanatory factors, whereas current age was a spurious factor that should not be used in the model. Fifth, in the context of marriage duration and marriage age, the explanatory factors with rather strong explanatory powers for at least one nationality included spousal age gap, marital status, remarriage status, co-residence with parent, and wife’s employment status. Sixth, the expected negative effect of wife’s educational attainment on lifetime fertility turned out to be either non-existent or modest. In particular, it had practically no effect on the probability of being childless. These findings implied that getting better educated foreign wives could increase the quality of their children with little or no reduction in the number of their children and in their probability of being childlessASEAN countries, China, international marriage, international migration, fertility, Taiwan

Three Essays on Health Care

This dissertation has been motivated by the question of how countries should optimally structure health care. Especially, there are two important economic and policy questions asked that extend beyond the area of health economics. The first is how the expansion of health insurance coverage affects the utilization and health of its beneficiaries (extensive margin); the second is how generous should health insurance be (intensive margin) to balance the provision of care and financial protection against risk while containing medical expenditures. The three chapters in this dissertation aim to make empirical contributions to these ongoing research questions. First chapter, "The Effect of Patient Cost-Sharing on Utilization, Health and Risk Protection: Evidence from Japan" addresses the second question. It investigates how cost-sharing, requiring patients to pay a share of the cost of care, affects the demand for care, health itself, and risk protection among the elderly, the largest consumers of health service. Previous studies of cost-sharing have had difficulty separating the effect of cost-sharing on patients from the influence of medical providers and insurers. This paper overcomes that limitation by examining a sharp reduction in cost-sharing at age 70 in Japan in a regression discontinuity design. I find that price elasticities of demand for both inpatient admissions and outpatient visits among the elderly are comparable to prior estimates for the non-elderly. I also find that the welfare gain from risk protection is relatively small compared to the deadweight loss of program financing, suggesting that the social cost of lower cost-sharing may outweigh social benefit. Taken together, this study shows that an increase in cost-sharing may be achieved without decreasing total welfare. Third chapter, "Effects of Universal Health Insurance on Health Care Utilization, Supply-Side Responses and Mortality Rates: Evidence from Japan" (with Ayako Kondo) address the first question. Even though most developed countries have implemented some form of universal public health insurance, most studies on the impact of the health insurance coverage have been limited to specific subpopulations, such as infants and children, the elderly or the poor. We investigate the effects of a massive expansion in health insurance coverage on utilization and health by examining the introduction of universal health insurance in Japan in 1961. We find that health care utilization increases more than would be expected from previous estimates of the elasticities of individual-level changes in health insurance status such as RAND Health Insurance Experiment in the US. The two chapters addressed above focus on consumers' incentives. Second chapter, "Supply-Induced Demand in Newborn Treatment: Evidence from Japan" (with Kiyohide Fushimi) examines the incentives faced by medical providers. Since medical providers exert a strong influence over the quantity and types of medical care demanded, measuring the size of supply-induced demand (SID) has been a long-standing controversy in health economics. However, past studies may underestimate the size of SID since it is empirically difficult to isolate SID from other confounding hospital behaviors, such as changes in the selection of patients. We overcome these empirical challenges by focusing on a specific population: at-risk newborns, and we measure the degree of SID by exploiting changes in reimbursement caused by the introduction of the partial prospective payment system (PPS) in Japan, which makes some procedures relatively more profitable than other procedures. We find that hospitals respond to PPS adoption by increasing utilization and increasing their manipulation of infant's reported birth weight, which determines infants reimbursement and maximum length of stay. We also find that this induced demand substantially increases hospital reimbursements without improving infant health, implying that the additional money spent has no commensurate health gains

Granting Permanent Resident Aliens the Right to Vote in Local Government: The New Komeitō Continues to Promote Alien Suffrage in Japan

Throughout the world, the dominant suffrage model has been voting rights based on citizenship. However, the trend of globalization, the increase of cross-border migration, and the advent of supranational institutions such as the European Union have prompted many countries to reconsider the relationship between nationality and voting rights. This has resulted in a growing trend, beginning in Europe and spreading most recently to South Korea, of adopting a notion of suffrage based on residency and community rather than citizenship. Japan is currently considering legislation, known as the “Local Suffrage Bill,” which would allow permanent resident aliens (“PRAs”) to vote in local elections. The Constitution of Japan grants the right to vote solely to Japanese nationals. However, Japan has an ever-increasing PRA population and a growing interest in alien suffrage. While there is opposition to the movement, the Japanese Supreme Court has held that granting suffrage to PRAs on a subnational level is constitutional. In 2004, the New Komeitō, a member of Japan’s ruling coalition, resubmitted its 2000 Local Suffrage Bill to the Diet. Passage of the bill would allow Japan’s PRAs to more fully participate in Japanese society and would have an impact beyond simply following the global trend in alien suffrage. With Japan facing a looming social security crisis that necessitates a sustainable influx of foreign laborers, an alien suffrage bill could encourage long-term migration and help ensure Japan’s continued economic success

Tax Policy in Aging Japan

This paper investigates a desirable tax policy for Japan’s coming aging society. Because the current Japanese public pension program is operated in a manner similar to a pay-as-you-go scheme, the declining percentage of the working population will have a harmful effect on economic welfare. Simulation results show in a quantitative way that a progressive expenditure tax is ultimately desirable, and that an inheritancetax stimulates capital accumulation followingan expenditure tax. This paper suggests that the Japanese tax system should rely more on an inheritance tax, and that when consideringa tax-combination policy, a combination of a progressive expenditure tax and an inheritance tax may be desirable in terms of efficiency and equity

Demographic Change in Japan and the EU

This volume contains selected papers of the 2008 annual conference of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (Vereinigung für sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung e.V. – VSJF). The academic meeting has addressed the issue of demographic change in Japan in comparison to the social developments of ageing in Germany and other member states of the European Union. The conference was organized by the Institute for Modern Japanese Studies at Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf and took place at the Mutter Haus in Kaiserswerth (an ancient part of Duesseldorf). Speakers from Germany, England, Japan and the Netherlands presented their papers in four sessions on the topics “Demographic Trends and Social Analysis”, “Family and Welfare Policies”, “Ageing Society and the Organization of Households” and “Demographic Change and the Economy”. Central to all transnational and national studies on demographic change is the question of how societies can be reconstructed and be made adaptive to these changes in order to survive as solidarity communities. The authors of this volume attend to this question by discussing on recent trends of social and economic restructuring and giving insight into new research developments such as in the area of households and housing, family care work, medical insurance, robot technology or the employment sector

Japan's pension reform

Rapid population ageing has led to repeated adjustments to the parameters of Japan's public pension scheme over the last decade, all aimed at achieving long run financial balance. The most recent attempt, describe in this paper, introduces an adjustment mechanism that links future benefit levels to the underlying determinants of the scheme's finances. This mechanism is similar to those recently introduced in Germany and, to a lesser extent, in Sweden, and fundamentally alters the concept of the'defined benefit'. Changes to how pension reserves are invested are also described. Finally, the benefit reductions in the public scheme and recent regulatory changes suggest an increased future role for complementary private provision.Economic Theory&Research,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Technology Industry,State Owned Enterprise Reform,Demographics