Role of Income to Marriage Behavior for Japanese Women: Marriage Timing, Desire to Marry, Actions toward Marriage*

Research on the relationship between income and marriage has paid little attention to how income affects one’s decision to marry. This paper investigates the role of Japanese women’s own income to her marriage timing, intention to marry, and actions taken toward marriage. I find that as income increases, marriage occurs later. However, this is not due to the fact that they reduce incentives to marry when they become financially better off, as one theory predicts. Rather, her intention to marry is independent of income. I also find that income has nothing to do with activities to get married, particularly activities in finding marriage partners by those who do not seem to have a boyfriend. These findings suggest that in making a decision to marry, women’s income plays a role not as an ability to earn their living, but as something other that would interfere with marriage. 1