Japan is far from reaching the paternity leave goals laid out by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, even though a record percentage of fathers took time off to be with their babies last year.
According to the survey published Monday by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 17.1% of men whose wives gave birth between Oct 2021 and Sept. 2022 took paternity leave, up more than three percentage points on the previous year. Just over 80% of women took maternity leave, down slightly on the previous year.
Kishida has raised the alarm about an aging society he has said is at risk of losing its ability to function. A study issued last week showed the population of Japanese nationals fell in all 47 of the country’s prefectures for the first time since complete data has been tracked.
As part of a package aimed at tackling the problem, Kishida vowed to raise the percentage of fathers working in the private sector who take at least a week of paternity leave to 50% in 2025 by bolstering benefits.
The idea is to encourage more sharing of the burden of childcare and housework, currently handled overwhelmingly by women. Experts have said Kishida’s policies don’t tackle underlying factors such as a lack of stable employment, which likely deter many from starting families.
A series of media polls has shown that most respondents aren’t optimistic about the results of Kishida’s $25 billion birthrate package. A survey by the Nikkei newspaper last month found 60% said they didn’t have positive expectations, while 33% said they did.
For 1,500 of Japan’s top companies, the paternity leave rate was 48% in 2022, according to a recent survey by the Japan Business Federation, the country’s largest business lobbying group.
Among those, Toyota Motor Corp. saw 38% of its male workforce taking parental leave, while Sony Group Corp. had a ratio of 56% and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. 90%.
--With assistance from Kanoko Matsuyama.
(Updates with corporate data in last two paragraphs.)
