Legislation will require companies in Japan with 100 or more employees to track the number of fathers who take time off and report those numbers to the government.
A new set of rules put into place by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare aims to reduce the unfair childcare load on women and encourage more couples to have children.
The government will present the new plan, an addition to the Japanese law called “Measures to Support Raising Children of the Next Generation,” to the National Diet while it is still meeting normally. If passed, it will start in April 2025.
Businesses with more than 1,000 workers must show how many of their workers actually take family leave. Companies with more than 100 employees should also have to follow this rule if the change goes into effect in April 2023.
About fifty thousand companies will have to comply with the rule. The ministry will provide advice on corrective measures to those who neglect to establish and/or reveal their goals.
The increase in dual-income households has led to a growing trend of males choosing to take time off for paternity leave; nonetheless, the uptake rate of paternity leave was just 17.1% in the fiscal year 2022, much lower than the 80.2% rate among women. The ministry’s report indicated that this is in spite of the overall increase from 1.9% in 2012.
According to the government, organisations need to change their perspective and make structural changes. It referenced a survey from 2022 that revealed 23% of male full-time employees mentioned a stressful work environment and a lack of empathy from superiors as reasons why they were unable to take paternity leave.
Nowadays, there are more than twice as many dual-income homes in Japan as there are households headed by stay-at-home mothers.
According to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the nation hopes to boost women’s job progress and possibly reverse the dropping birth rate by supporting measures that allow both parents to actively participate in childcare.
