Japan plans to require firms to set paternity leave targets

The Japanese government plans to require companies with over 100 employees to set and disclose paternity leave targets from April 2025 to facilitate fathers’ involvement in child-rearing and allow parents to better manage work and family responsibilities, government sources said on Monday.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare plans to submit a related bill to the ordinary Diet session to implement the measure, covering around 50,000 companies in Japan, the sources said.

The ratio of Japanese men who took paternity leave stood at 17.1 per cent in a financial year 2022 survey, far less than 80.2 per cent among women and far below the government’s 2025 target of 50 per cent.

As for companies with 100 employees or fewer, they will be asked to make efforts to set paternity leave targets but will not be obliged, the sources said.

The disclosure of paternity leave is set to be included in action plans on workplace support for raising children that the government requires the companies with over 100 employees to compile, the sources said. The action plans will also include targets such as on overtime per full-time worker, they said.

The companies are asked to submit the action plans to the ministry’s labour bureaus and then make them public, the sources said.

The ministry can issue recommendations for companies who do not disclose the targets to do so, they said.

Since April last year, companies with over 1,000 employees are already required to publish data on the percentage of male workers who have taken paternity leave.

In a survey conducted by the ministry in financial year 2022 of 1,000 full-time male workers, roughly 620 men said they had never taken paternity leave, of whom 39.9 per cent cited concern about decreased income