Japan offers the longest and best-paid paternity leave in the world, but only 6% of fathers take it. The government is considering making it compulsory and increasing benefits to 100% of normal salary. Many fathers want to take leave but are prevented by staff shortages and workloads. Mothers spend much more time caring for children than fathers.
According to a UNICEF report, Japan leads the world in terms of both the length and compensation of its statutory paternity leave. The law grants mothers and fathers up to 12 months of paid leave, with access to state benefits. The problem is that fathers in Japan rarely take the generous parental leave they are entitled to.
In 2018, only around 6% of fathers took leave, up from around 3% in 2016. By contrast, more than 82% of working mothers took parental leave.
Japan has long had a problem with overwork, with many employees skipping vacations and regularly working more than 40 hours a week. Getting workers to voluntarily take time off is still an uphill battle. Some think the government should make it compulsory to take time off work after the birth of a child, to force fathers to participate.
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The Japanese government is also considering increasing parental leave benefits for workers, as an incentive, from covering 67% of a worker’s normal salary to 100%.
In 2018, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare stated that 30% of male employees aged between 20 and 40 want to take parental leave but cannot, mainly due to staff shortages and overwhelming workloads.
A 2018 study found that Japanese mothers typically spend 3 hours and 45 minutes caring for children every day. On average, men spend just 49 minutes a day spending time with their children.
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