A Long-run Consequence of Relaxation-Oriented Education on Labor Market Performance

This paper investigates whether a relaxation-oriented educational approach can lead to either improved or worsened labor market outcomes. By examining individuals born in the same year but with varying durations of exposure to the relaxation-oriented curriculum of the 1980s in Japan, we analyze the impact of this curriculum on their performance in the labor market. Our findings reveal that individuals exposed to more years of a relaxed education tended to achieve less favorable outcomes, including lower earnings, a higher likelihood of unemployment, and reduced chances of securing full-time employment. This study also explores the potential mechanisms contributing to their suboptimal performance, highlighting lower educational attainment and relatively low probability to work as skilled workers. Importantly, our results remain robust even after controlling for other potential explanations and withstand various sensitivity tests.