Family Formation and Consumption Allocation within a Household in Japan

Chizu Yoshida, Kanto Gakuin University

In this paper I analyze how household expenditure changes when a child is born and grows up. Do wives and husbands equally take the monetary cost of children by reducing their expenditure? The data comes from the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure conducted by the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communication at 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004 in Japan. From the results, when the first or second child is born, household consumption expenditure doesn’t increase on the average. During children’s early age household consumption expenditure decreases and a couple increases savings in order to prepare children’s secondary education. The cost of children and reduction of consumption expenditure during children’s early ages decrease more wives’ expenditure than husbands’. In Japan wives mainly do childcare and burden time cost of childcare. At the same time wives take more consumption cost of children than husbands.