“Fewer children are being born…” To deal with this problem, the Japanese government has announced a new initiative for employees. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said that from April next year, employees will have the option of taking 3 days off in a week, so that they can spend more time in raising children and improve family life.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike announced that from April 2025, employees will have the option of taking three days off so they can spend more time with their families and raising children.
Japan has seen a decline in childbearing in the past few years, and one of the main reasons for this is the difficulties in managing a family along with a career. People are often forced to quit their jobs to take care of their children, which has further worsened the country’s fertility rate. Keeping this in mind, the local administration has adopted many new policies to encourage Japanese couples to have children.
Explaining the initiative, Governor Koike said that the plan is to bring flexibility to the workplace and give women the opportunity to balance career and family. According to her, this step will ensure that no employee is forced to give up their career due to child-rearing.
Apart from this, this initiative will also be helpful for parents whose children are studying in primary school. They will be given the option to reduce working hours, which will lead to a balanced cut in their salary. Only 727,277 births were recorded in Japan last year, which has been reduced due to the overtime work culture. Here women are forced to choose between career and family, which affects the birth rate.
Globally, a four-day workweek was trialled by 4 Day Week Global in 2022, with over 90% of employees expressing a desire to retain it. Other Asian countries, such as Singapore, have also pushed for flexible working hours to provide employees with a better balance.
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