Japan sees record paternity leave uptake in 2023: reports

The utilisation of paternity leave in Japan marked a new high in fiscal year 2023 amid strong encouragement from the government, according to reports.

Data from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare revealed that a record 30% of eligible employees took paternity leave in fiscal 2023, Kyodo News reported.

This is up by 13 percentage points from the 17% recorded in the previous year.

The new record, however, still falls short of the government's target of 50% paternity leave utilisation rate by 2025.

However, it indicates positive outcomes from the government's measures to hike paternity leave usage, such as by mandating companies to inform employees of paternity or maternity leave.

They are also mandated to confirm whether workers plan to take the leave after they have informed employers of pregnancy and childbirth, Kyodo News reported.

Paternity leave utilisation

The duration of paternity leave used has also seen changes, with 28% of employees taking a leave of one to three months, higher than the 11.9% in fiscal 2018.

Employees taking a paternity leave for less than two weeks also dropped to 37.7% from over 70% in fiscal 2018, according to the report.

By company size, larger companies with 500 or more employees reported a paternity leave rate of 34.2%. Smaller firms with five to 29 workers, on the other hand, had a lower rate of 26.2%.

By industry, the highest rates of paternity leave were in services related to daily lives and entertainment at 55.3%, as well as finance and insurance firms at 43.8%.

In contrast, lower rates were seen in the real estate and goods leasing industry at 16.9%, and in the accommodation and restaurant businesses at 21.1%.

Meanwhile, maternity leave usage in Japan climbed to 84.1% in fiscal year 2023, up by 3.9 points from the previous year.