Using several kinds of micro data from household, employee, and retrospective surveys, this study examines the increase in the working hours of regular male employees in Japan during the serious recession of the early 2000s. The most important finding of this study is that working hours tended to be long among regular male employees in firms with major employee adjustments. The results suggest that the existence of abundant fixed duties necessary to maintain the internal organization of a firm primarily account for the increase in working hours of male employees during the recession. J. Japanese Int. Economies 36 (2015) 1-24. The University of Tokyo, Institute of Social Science, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; Waseda University, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, 1-6-1 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan; Keio University, Faculty of Economics, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

By using both macro- and micro-level data, this paper investigates how wages and prices evolved during Japan's lost two decades. We find that downward nominal wage rigidity was present in Japan until the late 1990s, but disappeared after 1998 as annual wages became downwardly flexible. Moreover, nominal wage flexibility may have contributed to Japan's relatively low unemployment rates. Although macro-level movements in nominal wages and prices seemed to be synchronized, such synchronicity is not observed at the industry level. Therefore, wage deflation does not seem to be a primary factor of Japan's prolonged deflation.

By using a unique dataset on managerial-level employees who were transferred from Japan to European branches of the same global firms, we examine what would happen to work hours when a worker moves from a long-hour-working country to relatively shorter-hour countries. Even after controlling for business cycles, unobserved individual heterogeneity, job characteristics, and work hour regulations, we find a significant decline in Japanese work hours after their transfer to Europe, resulting from working-behavior influences of locally hired staff. We also find that the reduction in hours worked highly depends on the extent of the workers' interactions with local peers. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Using information on Japanese males' work hours and the matched firms' characteristics, this paper investigates whether the number of hours worked is determined by demand-side factors and tries to offer a possible explanation of why Japanese males tend to work longer on average, than their counterparts in other countries. Based on an empirical framework in which each firm sets a minimum boundary of work hours and where workers hired by the firm are required to put in at least the minimum hours, we found that the minimum requirement depends on each firm's fixed costs of labor. Specifically, firms that tend to hoard labor during recessions, presumably because of higher fixed costs, require incumbent workers to work longer hours during normal times. Since Japanese firms have long been considered as incurring high fixed costs to train workers, we interpret the long work hour requirement as a rational strategy for Japanese firms in protecting high-skill-accumulated workers from dismissal. In other words, the long work hours of Japanese males reflect firms' long-term employment practices, a typical feature of the Japanese labor market. J. Japanese Int. Economies 29 (2013) 57-73. Waseda University, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Japan; Keio University, Faculty of Business and Commerce, Japan. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kuroda, Sachiko, and Yamamoto, Isamu-Impact of overtime regulations on wages and work hours
Exploiting an ambiguity in the criteria regarding which employees are exempt from overtime regulations in Japan, this paper used the longitudinal data of Japanese employees to examine whether overtime regulations have an impact on hourly wages and hours worked. We found that although the differences between the hourly wages of the exempt and non-exempt employees were negligible, the hours worked by exempt employees were longer, especially for non-university graduates during the recessionary period. We interpreted that the fixed-wage model, rather than the fixed-job model, was prevalent during the recession period, especially for workers with low bargaining power. J. Japanese Int. Economies 26 (2) (2012) 249-262. Waseda University, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, 1-6-1 Nishiwaseda Shinjukuku, Tokyo, japan; Keio University, Faculty of Business and Commerce, 2-15-45-502 Mita Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using data from a Japanese time use survey, we show a noteworthy increase in the share of employees working at unusual hours (late night and early morning) over a period of a decade since the mid-1990s. When controlling for changes in hours worked, however, we find that the notable increase in the fraction of people at work at unusual hours was for low-income nonregular employees (part-time, temporary and contract workers) while relatively higher income regular employees' work timing remains stable. These observations imply that there is a trend of diversification of work timing in Japan between regular and nonregular employees. A possible explanation is that the increase in the average hours worked per weekday by regular employees, possibly because of the spread of the 5-day workweek since the 1990s, increased services and goods demand at unusual hours as they returned home. An Oaxaca-Blinder type decomposition suggests that such an increase in the average hours worked by regular employees explains partially the rise in the employment rate of nonregular employees at unusual times.

Kuroda, Sachiko-Do Japanese Work Shorter Hours than before? Measuring trends in market work andleisure using 1976-2006 Japanese time-use survey
Using Japanese time-use data from the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (STULA), this paper measures trends in average hours worked (market work) and leisure for Japanese over the past three decades. OECD reports at least a 15% decline in market work for Japan since the 1970s. However, holding demographic changes constant, we found that market work per week increased from the 1970s until mid-1980s, and has been relatively stable for the last two decades for both male and female full-time workers. Furthermore, although the market work per week remained relatively constant since the mid-1980s, we found a significant change in the allocation of time to market work within the week during the period. Specifically, when dividing samples into weekdays (Monday-Friday) and weekends (Saturday and Sunday), average hours spent for market work per weekday among full-time males increased by 0.4 h since the mid-1980s, whereas a significant decline in market work on Saturday was observed. This suggests that people shifted their work time from Saturday to weekdays in response to the reduced work week introduced by the amendment of the Labor Standards Act at the end of 1980s. In the meantime, commuting time and home production had decreased by 3 h since the mid-1980s for full-time female workers, indicating that the average hours of leisure had increased for females even though market work remained the same. Interestingly, however, hours for sleep declined consistently over the last three decades, resulting in a 3-4 h reduction per week for both male and female workers. Lastly, a comparison of Japanese and US time-use data suggests that Japanese work much longer than their American counterparts. On average, Japanese males work 10 h longer per week, and Japanese females 7 h longer, than Americans, even after adjusting for demographic differences between the countries. J. Japanese Int. Economies 24 (4) (2010) 481-502. The University of Tokyo. Japan. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using Japanese data from the 1990s aggregated by prefecture, age group, and sex, we estimate Frisch labor supply elasticity, which has been seldom estimated in Japan. The change in labor supply can be decomposed into two labor-supply behaviors: extensive margin, indicating workers' entry and exit from the labor market; and intensive margin, indicating changes in hours of work in response to a wage change. Our estimates of the Frisch elasticity on the extensive and intensive margins combined are in the range of 0.2 to 0.7 for males, 1.3 to 1.5 for females, and 0.7 to 1.0 for both sexes. Our estimates of the Frisch elasticity on only the intensive margin are in the range of 0.1 to 0.2 for all three categories. These results suggest that extensive margin explains the bulk of labor-supply changes in Japan. As for the changes in the estimates of the Frisch elasticity in Japan from the 1990s, it has been either unchanged or in a declining trend on the extensive and intensive margins combined, either unchanged or in a slight rising trend on only the intensive margin, and in a declining trend on only the extensive margin. J. Japanese Int. Economies 22 (4) (2008) 566-585. Hitotsubashi University, Japan; Keio University, Japan. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using panel data collected every year on households, this project undertook multifaceted research on economic disparities. There are two parts of this research project. Regarding the first part, the design, analysis and public release of panel data set, the number of research projects that used the JHPS/KHPS has amounted to 1,112 during fiscal year 2012-2016. Regarding the second part, multifaceted and dynamic research on economic disparities, we conducted various research from the view point of five research groups: Labor Economics Group; Economics of Education Group; Asset Stock Group; Social Security Group; and Public Finance Group

In this project, I have mainly conducted the following three research. First theme is to identify the major determinants of long work hours of Japanese workers. Second theme is to look into the time allocation of middle-aged workers who face work-life-conflict. Since Japan is facing super-aged society, the number of workers who need to take care of their elderly parents while keeping his/her full-time job is rapidly growing. I found that time for elderly care is mainly concentrated during weekends because many workers become to work longer hours than before during weekdays. Third theme is the relationship between work and workers' mental health. Using workers' longitudinal data, I found that long work hours is one of the major factors that harms workers' mental health. Using firms' longitudinal data, I also found that firms with workers with bad mental health condition also suffers from lower profit rate

This empirical analysis investigates a problem of Japanese overwork which has been an on going issue in recent Japan. Specifically, the project focues on various aspects of work hours, such as, assessing the impact of overtime regulation on work hours or investigating how 24 hour society have progressed in recent economy

Due to the 1988 amendment to the Labor Standards Act, many firms introduced a five-day work week (instead of six days) beginning in the late 1980s. In contrast with the increasing trend of weekends, however, an increase in "overworking" by full-time employees has recently become a serious issue in Japan. To my knowledge, however, there has been no analysis that closely examines why such sentiments occurred in Japan. This research tries to analyze whether there was any change in people's labor supply behavior and also to measure trends in hours worked and leisure for Japanese over the past three decades