Higher Education, Lower Satisfaction: Hypogamy and Traditional Household Attitudes in Japan

This presentation examines the relationship between educational hypogamy and life satisfaction within the realm of traditional norms in Japan. Educational hypogamy in this context refers to women who have attained a higher level of education than their husbands. Using Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers data, which spans nearly three decades, the analysis reveals a significant negative correlation between hypogamy and life satisfaction in traditional households, where men often adhere to inflexible labor market roles and limited engagement in household chores.

The findings suggest that hypogamous women in such settings experience lower life satisfaction, potentially due to increased burdens in balancing household and labor market responsibilities. In contrast, women in non-traditional households exhibit no such negative association, and in some cases, hypogamy positively correlates with life satisfaction, particularly where women enjoy higher relative incomes or greater bargaining power within their households.

This session of the DIJ Study Group explores insights from Björn Becker’s forthcoming article “Higher Satisfaction, Lower Education: Hypogamy and Traditional Household Attitudes in Japan” and connects them with economic literature on the influence of traditional values in shaping household dynamics. The talk contributes to discussions on gender roles, household economics, and well-being from a perspective rooted in household and labor economics.

Björn Becker is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the EU (IAAEU) at Trier University, specializing in family and household economics in Japan. He completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in economics at the University of Cologne, where he wrote his master’s thesis about female labor supply and the gender wage gap in Japan. Björn’s primary research interest lies in topics related to households in Japan, partner’s decisions regarding specialization in the labor market or the household, and societal norms. He previously studied at the Hitotsubashi University and Sophia University. Since September 2024, Björn has been a PhD student at the DIJ Tokyo.