Intergenerational associations between paternal job loss and children's educational attainment in Japan

Abstract

This study explores the association between paternal job loss and children's educational attainments using the Keio Household Panel Survey (KHPS), which provides representative panel data for Japan. Because of the data limitation, the intergenerational consequences of a father's job loss have not been examined in depth in Japan. This study addresses this issue using retrospective data from the school and work history of KHPS and examines the influence of paternal job loss before their children complete compulsory education. In addition, this study employs not only the OLS and logit model but also several matching methods, such as propensity score matching, to examine these relationships properly. The empirical results present two findings. First, the father's job loss is negatively related to the children's educational attainments. Children whose fathers experienced job loss are less likely to graduate from university. In addition, the number of years of education for children whose fathers have lost their jobs is lower. Those results remain the same, despite using several matching methods. Second, even after considering the declines in fathers' income, the negative association of a father's job loss with children's educational attainments is observed.