Japanese company lets men take childcare leave with 100% salary

In an effort to reduce financial worries and encourage childbirth, some Japanese companies have launched a policy that allows fathers to take paternity leave with 100% pay.

Aeon Group will give employees full-paid parental leave to care for children up to 1 year old. The policy, expected to be implemented this year, is aimed at reducing financial worries and encouraging male employees to take parental leave.

The benefit, which has no age limit, will be rolled out gradually from February to about 150 companies in the group. In the first year, about 2,000 male and female employees are expected to take paid parental leave.

Currently, nearly 100% of Aeon's female employees who give birth are entitled to parental leave, but the rate for male employees is only 15%. The insured parental leave allowance is only up to about 80% of the salary, so employees will be paid the remaining 20% by the company after they return to work.

At the Japanese retailer, many employees are reluctant to take time off due to fear of losing income. So the company plans to encourage male employees to be more involved in childcare through various measures to ease their anxiety about returning to work.

In addition to the 100% pay policy during leave, Aeon also plans to set up a system to address employees' concerns about the potential impact on their career paths if they take parental leave. For example, if the company conducts personnel evaluations while an employee is on parental leave, they will only be evaluated based on the period before the employee's absence.

In Japan, Aeon is not alone in moving toward a parental leave policy. Suntory Holdings also plans to increase the proportion of male employees taking parental leave to 100% by 2025, from 85% in 2022.

At Sapporo Breweries, all male and female employees eligible for parental leave will be able to take it by 2023, after the company introduced a program that maintains 100% of salary during the first week of leave and provides in-home childcare consultants.

A survey conducted by Japan's Ministry of Health , Labor and Welfare in June 2023 of companies with more than 1,000 employees showed that 46.2% of male workers whose wives gave birth in the previous business year took parental leave.

As part of efforts to address the falling birth rate, the Japanese government has taken measures to increase the proportion of men taking paternity leave, with the goal of raising the rate to 50% by 2025 and 85% by 2030.

Japan's health ministry research agency projects the country's population will fall 17% between 2020 and 2050, to 104.69 million. By 2070, the population will fall to 87 million, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS). The number of children in Japan has been falling for more than four decades, as the desire to marry and raise children declines and financial worries grow.

Phien An ( according to JapanTimes, Kyodo News, Reuters )

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