An optical recording medium is provided, which has reduced degradation in jitter caused by manufacturing variations of a semiconductor laser emitting laser beams or variations in output power of laser beams, and which dissipates heat in the recording layer during recording by laser beams to increase the power margin of the laser beam providing playback jitter values at a certain level or less. An optical recording medium 10 has a support substrate 12, on which formed are a reflective film 16, a second dielectric layer 18, a recording layer 20, a first dielectric layer 22, a heat sink layer 24, and a light-transmitting layer 26. The heat sink layer 24 is formed of a material having a thermal conductivity within a certain range, e.g., alumina, to dissipate heat through the heat sink layer 24 when the heat is generated by a laser beam incident from the light-transmitting layer 26, thereby preventing an increase in temperature of the recording layer 20.