Coresidence with Parents and a Wife's Decision to Work in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that would affect the married couple's decision to coreside with their parents and a wife's decision to work in Japan, explicitly considering the simultaneous structure of these two decisions. Unlike preceding studies, we distinguish coresidence with the husband's parents and that with the wife's parents. Our empirical analysis based on the micro-data shows that the positive impact of coresidence with parents on the wife's labor participation tends to be underestimated, unless simultaneous decisions are taken into account. It is also found that the couple's decision to coreside with their parents is influenced by socio-economic and demographic factors such as the couple's educational attainments as well as the family relations.