Since the late 1990s, the number of college student loan debtors has increased rapidly in Japan. Despite the uniqueness of Japanese higher education policies in terms of tuition levels and heavy reliance on educational loans rather than grants, few studies have focused on the influence of student loans on adult youths' lives. This study is the…

In the prestige economy of higher education, research productivity is highly prized. Previous research indicates, however, a gender gap with respect to research output. This gap is often explained by reference to familial status and responsibilities. In this article, we examine the research productivity gender gap from an international perspective…

It is commonly believed that education is a good thing for individuals. Yet, its correlation with subjective well-being is most often only weakly positive, or even negative, despite the many associated better individual-level outcomes. We here square the circle using novel Japanese data on happiness aspirations. If reported happiness comes from a…