Much to be done in Japan’s family and gender equality policies

ABSTRACT

Prime Minister Kishida’s ‘unprecedented’ measures to counter declining births in Japan include increasing youth incomes, extending childcare leave entitlement and employee social insurance entitlement to precarious workers, and targeting 50% of fathers to take childcare leave by 2025 by increasing the childcare allowance to 80% of salary. He also proposed reskilling opportunities, and mandating firms to disclose their gender wage gap and gender managerial gap. However, reform should also make fundamental changes to Japanese employment practices and the Employee Social Insurance Scheme which is based on a breadwinner-housewife model. Unless the government explicitly moves towards a worker-carer model, the gender wage gap will stay high, and hinder marriage and births, since double income is seen as a must among younger generation. Fundamental change should be in line with the new attitudes of young non-married males and females.

KEYWORDS:

• Birth decline
• family policy
• gender division of labour
• gender equality
• Japan
• social insurance
• wage gap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society(RISTEX) of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) (grant number JPMJRX19H4; PI Nobuko Nagase); Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research (B)) (grant number 19KK0042; PI Nobuko Nagase).

Notes on contributors

Nobuko Nagase

Nobuko Nagase is Professor of Labour Economics and Social Policy at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo. Her comparative research interests include wage structure and work choice, labour market regulation and social security, tax and other institutional effects on work and gender, marital behaviour and child-birth timing. She has published in Japanese Economic Review, Asian Economic Policy Review, Demographic Research Econometric Review and The Quarterly of Social Security Research, among others.