Determinants of Welfare and Decision Making of Long-Term Care Workers in Japan

Abstract: In this study, we aimed to examine the factors that influence the welfare and decision-making of long-term care workers in Japan. To estimate subjective welfare, we investigated the overall job satisfaction among long-term care workers, and to analyze their decision making, we investigated whether these workers wanted to work or quit their current job. Then, we estimated these dependent variables using the ordinary least squire regression analysis and by using the 11 responses toward job satisfaction as independent variables. According to the results, all factors influenced the well-being of employees; on-the-job training was found to be the most influential factor. Decision making showed less influenced on the workers’ well-being, whereas being worthy of the job was found to be the most influential factor in decision making. Moreover, our results also showed that working hours and leisure time also influence job satisfaction of employees. Therefore, to stabilize labor supply in the Japanese long-term care industry, it is important to improve workers’ on-the-job training at office and companies and increase their leisure time. In addition, it is important that employees actively communicate with each other for better job satisfaction. 

Key words: Japanese long-term care workers; subjective well-being; decision making; job satisfaction

JEL code: I11, I31, J28