More Local Govts in Japan Promoting Paternity Leave

(2nd para should have ended with “… time ever.” and 3rd para with “… a decade earlier.”) Tokyo, Feb. 27 (Jiji Press)–A growing number of local governments across Japan are making it easier for male workers to take paternity leave, a move that is aimed at retaining human resources amid unabated population outflow to bigger cities. Thanks to such efforts, eligible male local government employees who took childcare leave accounted for 58.5 pct in fiscal 2024, exceeding 50 pct for the first time ever. Among male administrative officials, excluding police officers and education board staff, in particular, the proportion of paternity leave takers came to as high as 75 pct. The figure spiraled up from 1.5 pct a decade earlier. In fiscal 2022, when its paternity leave rate for men stood at 60.5 pct, the Fukuoka municipal government set the goal of having all eligible male workers take leave and launched full-fledged efforts to do so. Finding it important to reduce anxieties associated with taking child-rearing leave, the government asked each of those employees to submit a leave plan specifying the expected date of childbirth and a desired duration and then consult with the direct supervisor. It also helped calculate the impact on income. As a result, the goal was met in fiscal 2024. “We have achieved a certain result,” a Fukuoka municipal official said. “We don’t want the success to be transient, because we want it to catalyze women’s active social engagement.” In five years from fiscal 2019, the Kochi prefectural government succeeded in pushing up men’s leave rate from 6.5 pct to 73 pct, the third highest among the 47 prefectural capitals. The drastic improvement was brought on by a series of support measures introduced in fiscal 2020, such as those to enhance the consultation program for potential leave takers and establish a system to credit fill-in workers. “The Kochi government needed to show local companies a good example” of how to facilitate child-rearing by male employees at a time when the prefecture’s population is quickly declining along with the number of births, a prefectural official said. A senior official at the internal affairs ministry pointed out that local governments think it urgently necessary to take measures to improve the paternity leave rates among male staff so they can be employers of choice. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]