Guilt, gender, and work-life balance: A choice experiment1

Japan is amongst those countries known for long hours and an inflexible working culture that makes it difficult to pursue work-life balance. The question is what aspects of job market flexibility are most valuable to Japanese women and men and to what extent are these values are driven by feelings of guilt. Using a nationwide sample of 1046 working-age adults, we conduct a choice experiment that examines willingness to trade wages against changes in job characteristics such as the extent of overtime, job security, the possibility of work transfer and relocation. Our results suggest that: i) workers have high WTP (willingness to pay) to avoid extreme overtime and internal transfers but not to safeguard job security or to avoid relocation, ii) women have higher WTP than men, and iii) the gap is driven only in part by feelings of guilt. Perhaps surprisingly, women's preferences are generally not affected by the presence or absence of children in the household while men's WTP for work-life balance is generally lower in the presence of children, but less influenced by guilt.