Childcare availability and fertility: Evidence from municipalities in Japan

In this paper, we estimated the effect of childcare availability on fertility using Japanese municipal-level Census and Vital Statistics data from 2000 to 2010, carefully handling several potential sources of bias. We found that an increase in childcare availability in Japan from 2000 to 2010 led to a small but significant increase in the fertility rate of women aged 25-39 living in regions where the propensity for women to work is high, but had no significant effect in other regions. Our results demonstrate the importance that government pay attention to regional heterogeneity when formulating childcare policy and also suggest that a combination of better access to childcare, together with other pro-family measures, is needed to support Japanese women in the early-career demands of balancing work and family.