Working parents will be able to take time off more easily for childbirth and childcare, under a draft plan that will allow them to use such leave on more than one occasion.
Drawn up by an advisory body to the health, labor and welfare minister, the draft plan will let couples take turns staying home. The key to establishing the new system will be gaining the understanding of employers.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to submit a bill to the Diet to revise the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law, in February at the earliest. Under the current childcare leave system based on the law, an employee can take leave only once before a child turns 1 year old.
The revised system will allow both male and female employees to take childcare leave on two occasions.
"It will be easier to share childcare and housework between husband and wife if they can take turns with the leave," said a labor ministry official. "Women may also be able to go back to work earlier because they can take leave a second time at some point after returning to the workplace."
-- Maximum of 4 times for men
The revision also includes measures to encourage men to take childcare leave within eight weeks after the birth of a
child, the time when mothers are on maternity leave.
During that period, a woman who has just given birth to a child and is tasked with nursing is under a heavy burden both physically and mentally. Support from her husband can help prevent post-natal depression.
Demand for childcare leave during this period is high among male employees, so there is a special provision in the law that allows men who take childcare leave during this period to take time off again at a later point.
Under the new system, this leave within eight weeks of childbirth can also be divided into two blocs. This means that men will be able to take childcare leave on up to four separate occasions.
According to the ministry, the more time husbands spend on housework and child-rearing, the higher the percentage of wives who continue to work and have more children. However, only 7.48% of men took childcare leave, according to a ministry survey conducted in fiscal 2019, illustrating how it has yet to become widespread among men.
The new system will require companies to inform each employee expecting a child about the childcare leave system and encourage the employee to take time off.
"What's important is how to create circumstances within a company in which employees can feel at ease taking childcare leave," a senior ministry official said.
For employers, however, the new system will make it more complicated to manage personnel. It will especially be a challenge for small and mid-sized firms.
During discussions on revising the system at a subcommittee meeting of the Labor Policy Council, the advisory body to the labor minister, some members from the management side said it would be difficult to secure replacements at smaller companies, and that sufficient preparation time was needed so that labor management systems could be adjusted accordingly.
-- 'Best system' for men
In an effort to prevent women from quitting work after marriage or childbirth, the current Child Care and Family Care Leave Law was put into effect in 1992.
Related systems have been updated since so that employees can continue working. In 1995, employees became eligible for guaranteed income payments while on childcare leave, and in 2010 it became mandatory for employers to establish a reduced working hour system.
The percentage of women who continue to work after having their first child rose as a result, jumping from 39.3% in the late 1980s to 53.1% in the early 2010s. Women who left their jobs due to childbirth accounted for 60.7% of all female employees in the late 1980s, but the ratio dropped to 46.9% in the early 2010s.
However, the percentage of male employees who take childcare leave remains low, and the burden of childcare and housework tends to fall more heavily on women.
Japan's childcare leave system for men is highly regarded internationally. In a study published in 2019 by the United Nations Children's Fund, the length of childcare leave for men in terms of the number of days in which a full salary is paid put Japan on top of the 41 member nations of the OECD and the European Union.
Meiji University Prof. Kenji Suzuki, who specializes in comparative sociology, said: "Japan has a good system, so it's a shame that it's not widely used. The important thing is to change people's perceptions so that childcare leave will be considered beneficial for both employees and employers."
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