Ensure Parental Leave Is Actually Taken

Committee:
Sustainability & Social Responsibility
status:
New
Published:
Japan has one of the world's most generous parental leave systems, entitling both mothers and fathers to up to one year of paid leave. Yet while over 84% of mothers use this right, male uptake has historically been far lower. The proportion of men taking parental leave reached a record 40.5% in fiscal 2024, still well short of the government's own 50% target, and far below Scandinavian countries where uptake exceeds 90%. The gap is not a lack of entitlement: 25.9% of fathers who did not take leave cited the company or supervisor's atmosphere discouraging it.

Recommendations

  • Mandate that companies actively facilitate their parental leave entitlements, with measurable uptake targets
  • Prohibit any direct or indirect penalisation of employees who take full parental leave, with enforceable consequences for non-compliance
  • Require companies above a certain size to publicly report gender-disaggregated parental leave uptake rates annually
  • Explore a non-transferable paternity leave quota (as in Scandinavia) to shift cultural norms around shared childcare