Remarriage in Japan: A First Look

James Raymo, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Miho Iwasawa, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Tokyo

Our goal in this paper is to provide the first comprehensive analysis of remarriage in Japan. Using retrospective marital history data from the 14th National Fertility Survey (conducted in 2010), we model the risk of remarriage as function of educational attainment, presence of children, and other covariates. We find no evidence that remarriage plays a role in exacerbating the implications of divorce for poverty and inequality. In contrast to divorce, which is concentrated among women with lower levels of education, there are no significant educational differences in remarriage. We also find that remarriage is a potentially important policy target for efforts to promote fertility. Women without children from their previous marriage are much more likely to remarry than their counterparts with children. These results highlight the importance of further research on patterns of childbearing in second marriages.