How does informal caregiving affect daughters' employment and mental health in Japan?

We examine the association of informal caregiving with daughters' employment and mental health in Japan, using the 2008-2014 waves of the Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged and Older Adults, a large and nationally representative panel survey of middle-aged Japanese individuals. We find that caregiving reduces the probability of employment by only 3.2%, after controlling for time-invariant individual heterogeneity, and is not associated with either the hours or days worked per week by working caregivers. We further observe that employment does not add to the psychological distress already being experienced by the caregivers as a result of their caregiving role.