This paper seeks to address the problems of childcare scarcity, declining fertility rates and work-family conflict faced by the growing female labor force in Japan. Japan’s total fertility rate has been declining since the 1970s and it fell below the replacement level of 1.3 in 2003....

Changes in the unemployment rate can have differing impacts on the labour force participation rate depending on the strength of the added worker effect and the discouraged worker effect. This paper documents the differences in the relationship between the unemployment rate and the labour force...

An empirical assessment shows that Malaysia’s business cycle indicators can be improved. Turning point detection is not impressive, especially for troughs. Lead times are also variable. However, the relationship between the leading and coincident indicators over the entire cycle shows quite...

In reviewing the population policy in 1984, Malaysian government called for a major shift from family planning to family and human resource development to achieve an ultimate population of 70 million by 2100. However, regardless of the government’s initiatives since the 1984, Malaysia’s...