Changes in Japan’s Labor Market Flows due to the Lost Decade*

We construct worker flows for the Japanese labor market in an internationally comparable manner, and study the consequences of the deep and lasting recession of the 1990s in the Japanese labor market. We analyze the changes in employment, unemployment and inactivity, as well as the worker flows between this states by using detailed Labor Force Survey micro-data from 1983 to 2008. In order to understand what type of worker was most affected by the long recession, we disaggregate the data according to several worker and employer’s characteristics. We find that the so-called Lost Decade of the 1990s changed the state of the labor market from all the previous points of view, although some types of workers were more affected than others