More Japanese public servants take up paternity leave

The majority of Japanese public servants are now taking up paternity leave, following the government’s new policy of allowing all male employees to take at least a month of childcare leave from fiscal 2020 onwards.

In line with that, some 97.2% of the male national public servants whose children were born between July 2020 and March 2021 took paternity leave for at least a month.

Manager-level officials would draw up leave plans based on requests from their subordinates, writes Nippon news.

Leave plans were created for all 8,922 male national public servants with children born in the nine-month period, according to the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs. 

Of that, 8,670 workers planned to take childcare leave for a total of at least one month, for an average duration of 50 leave days.

READ: 37% of 24,042 companies in Japan breached overtime laws

In June, Japanese lawmakers passed a bill that awarded fathers more flexibility when taking paternity leave after childbirth, allowing them to take a total of four weeks off within eight weeks of a child’s birth. They are also allowed to split the period into two.