At a Cabinet meeting on Friday morning, the government decided on the outline of measures for a society with a low fertility rate, which will serve as a guideline for measures to deal with the issue over the next five years. The focus is on improving the economic environment so that the younger generation can be more positive about starting a family and raising children.
For the first time, the outline specifies a target of raising the fertility rate to 1.8 over the next five years. The 1.8 target reflects the average number of children that women in Japan say they would like to have. The outline noted that the reason for the low fertility rate is economic instability and the heavy burden of childcare and education costs. To alleviate this anxiety, the outline includes measures to expand support for the lives of newly married households and promote regular employment for young people.
In public comments collected by the government, many people called for reducing the burden of expensive medical treatments for infertility. The government indicated that it would consider easing income limits on subsidies and expanding the scope of medical insurance coverage after conducting a survey on the treatments by the end of fiscal 2020.
To address the needs of the child-rearing generation, a numerical target will be set to increase the rate of men taking childcare leave from the current 6% to 30%, and a system will be considered to make it easier for men to take leave immediately after their spouse gives birth. With regard to the child allowance that is paid to children until they graduate from junior high school, the government will "examine how to effectively provide the allowance in accordance with the number of children and their income level," taking into account a possible increase in the amount for households with multiple children.
It also mentioned the spread of the new coronavirus, and stated a policy of strengthening measures against infections among pregnant women and systems to watch over children in order to create an environment in which women can give birth and raise children with peace of mind.
The outline was formulated in 2004 and is now in its fourth phase after being reviewed every five years. In the previous outline, the government regarded the five years from 2015 to 2020 as a period of intensive efforts to improve the child-rearing environment and set out to improve the fertility rate. However, the total fertility rate, which measures the estimated number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, remained low at 1.42 in 2018, and the number of births in 2019 fell below 900,000 for the first time, to a record low of 864,000.
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