Family Policy Awareness and Marital Intentions: A National Survey Experimental Study

Abstract

Despite extensively examining the effects of family policies on marriage and fertility rates, previous research has paid little attention to the process of policy implementation and has implicitly assumed that individuals are fully aware of the policy information when making marital and fertility decisions. Challenging this assumption, we theorize policy awareness as an important mechanism for understanding the potential influence of family policies on individuals' marital intentions, an understudied yet crucial determinant of family formation behavior. In an experiment using a national survey of young unmarried individuals in Japan, respondents were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment group was informed about 17 Japanese family policy benefits, but most of the respondents knew none or only a few of these benefits. After exposure to the policy information, the treatment group had significantly higher marital intentions than the control group, which had similar baseline characteristics but no information exposure. Crucially, such positive effects were particularly pronounced among high-educated women and high- and low-educated men, reflecting the differentiated effects of policy awareness under Japan's traditional gender role norms. Overall, these findings highlight the pivotal role of policy awareness during the family formation process and contribute to the debate over whether and how family policies may influence different subpopulations.

Fertility Intention to Have a Third Child in China following the Three-Child Policy: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Our results indicated that most of the reproductive-age population with two children, the target population of the three-child policy, had a low level of policy knowledge. Furthermore, participants who intended to have a third child showed a higher level of policy knowledge than those who did not intend to have a third child, which is consistent with the results of Gong and Wang’s study [ 24 ] on the association of family policy awareness and marital intentions in Japan. The failure of a family policy may be due to the policy itself but could also be attributed to low policy awareness and perceived accessibility among the target population [ 24 ].…”

“…Furthermore, participants who intended to have a third child showed a higher level of policy knowledge than those who did not intend to have a third child, which is consistent with the results of Gong and Wang’s study [ 24 ] on the association of family policy awareness and marital intentions in Japan. The failure of a family policy may be due to the policy itself but could also be attributed to low policy awareness and perceived accessibility among the target population [ 24 ]. Thus, in addition to focusing on policy availability, policymakers should prioritize public awareness of the family policy.…”

Burnout and Its Antecedents: Considering Both Work and Household Time Claims, and Flexibility in Relation to Burnout

“…This would lead to inferences on whether and how employees manage their time between work and family and how they may employ flexible work arrangements to accommodate fulfilling multiple roles. Another avenue for future research could be to study other family-supportive policies ( 52 ), besides flextime and flexplace, and how these other policies, such as civic participation, may moderate the relationship between time claims and burnout ( 53 ). In addition, although this research was conducted in the Netherlands, a developed country, the results in this study also hold significant implications for developing countries in terms of developing employee-friendly workplace policies.…”