87% of Japan firms say paternity leave averages less than 3 months

In the company I work at,

men can take a full month off, then 6 months of half work-days, then 3 years of strictly no over time. They get special leave day which is not counted from the normal leave day whenever kids/wife gets sick or other emergencies.

Women take a full year, and if you live nearby, you can send them to company operated childcare, at much lower cost than normal ones.

This is only doable for giant company with lots of employees who can take over.

I know a guy who works for one of the three mega Japanese banks in Tokyo and took a seven-month paternity leave. His manager, in his fifties, was quite shocked about it, but the guy had full support from HR, which in Japan, contrary to the West, holds significant power. The bank wants to set an example to demonstrate that they are changing, especially to attract new graduates from top universities, which all companies are competing for these days. It probably didn’t hurt that the guy was highly capable, and the company didn’t want to lose him.

Aging population and decreasing number of new recruits prevents many male employees from taking longer leave because it means placing additional burden on their colleagues who are then forced to work overtime to cover two jobs. I've heard from several people, both male and female explain that it would be more practical to allow men to have flexible working hours and the ability to work from home to meet both the child rearing and workplace burden requirements. As always the government has no idea what's going on in the actual workplace and it's only the affluent or politicians like Koizumi who can actually take advantage of the government's paternity leave policy.

I know a foreign man, working for a small company and who tried to get time off after his wife had a baby. The boss told him that their lawyer said small companies were not obliged to give time off, however, this boss admitted after being confronted by news stories such as these that their words may be not true.

What is sad, these individuals running these companies get away with it and appears more of the smaller businesses and the government needs to start fining the 200,000 thousand that has been enacted into law.

Big corporate companies give easily paternity leave if the employee does wish to take it. The new generation does not hesitate to take that leave.

Issues are with the small and understaffed companies.

ChabbawangaToday  06:50 am JST

Sam reason so many male staff stay at work as late as possible. They dont want to spend time with their family. They would rather nap at work or sip canned coffee and smoke cigs with their coworkers

Wake up. Japan has moved away from the Showa period.

@Rakuraku

You are right.

My coworker took six months off. I have never heard anyone complaining about it, but rather it was "take your time to raise your kid and this difficult/busy period"

When my daughter was born I was allowed to leave early, but expected to be back at work the following day.

I also had to make up the hours I’d missed.

There was not one millisecond of service sangyo done from that day onwards.

This is played in a negative light as it is actually much better than most western countries outside of Scandi.

I'm a Portuguese top grad went to the UK with my wife worked at a couple of big firms. Accountant so normal work week 60 hours month/year ends 80-100 hours (no paid overtime obviously no time off in lieu - this is pretty standard). Prior to 2020 zero working from home unless an emergency. Remote working capability is just to work extra hours at home.

Had a daughter in 2018. Government policy 2 weeks of paid leave. Company gave a lot more than gvmt minimum to female but not male employees (this is also pretty common). 1 week full pay 1 week was paid at gvmt stat rate this is about 25% of nmw or 10% of my salary so as I was saving for a house could just afford a week off (women got 6 months full pay plus 6 months stat).

I had taken little holiday leave that year so 2.5 weeks of holiday plus 1 week of paternity and back at work with the expectation I would make up for lost time (so 100 hour weeks).

I loved to spend time with my wife and child. It was a joy when the weather was terrible and I had to work from home but that was once a year.

After 6 months my wife was back in Portugal with her parents as she got little support (childcare in the UK is a joke). After 1.5 years we were divorced.

Yeah I would love working for a regular Japanese company.

Even Japanese government support with integration of foreign workers and their children is miles ahead of most Western countries (that are getting more xenophobic by the day).

From what I’ve heard, the salary is crappy and a motive for them to come back to work . . . fast..

The government pays the salary for the workers who take maternity and paternity leave. This means that the company doesn’t have to worry.

Most companies are not bad to work for

Why we all focusing on the bad apples only

To be honest, i don't personally know anyone who is suffering from all these things i read here on JT

Even though men are being emasculated in this modern world, it is interesting to see Japanese men still hold their own in wanting to be the provider despite all these movements to get them to be a iku-men or nurturer for their family. I'm hearing from friends and wife's friends who are currently pregnant or already had their babies all say the same thing, they really don't give a rats about their jobs and want to spend their time with their babies while their husbands agree they want them to do the same. It's ridiculous we don't have the option anymore to have a house wife or husband because of how ridiculous living costs are for families.

It is not mentioned in article how.much the salary is during paternity leave.

I really doubt you get full salary, except if low wage.

In France for comparison, it is now 1 month full salary.

I have 3 kids and never felt the need to stay home with my wife when children were babies. I was waking in the middle of the night as a normal father. Otherwise, babies sleep a lot and get breastfed by mother.

What is most important is to be there with kids when needed, not especially at all when they are babies but for life.

Stereo type? Must be and I apologize. Asian culture and believe is family first so must do our utmost best even sometime maybe culturally, socially, and sadly illegal but as immediate family members we must do what are necessary to make family proud and happy so when comes to the biggest root of family structure, which is preparing future of kids from birth, parental leave avg.

I guarantee they felt pressured to return to work, as soon as possible, either overtly or through more subtle inference.

Also, Tokio Marine said 100% took child-care leave? 100%? So, every male employee at that company has at least one child? That seems kinda weird, especially in a country with such a supposedly low birthrate.

Wake up. Japan has moved away from the Showa period.

Almost

Dinosaur pace..Obviously tying to get the population to zero as fast as possible. I thought they had at least wanted to slow the curve.

113 companies between November and December, around half of them reported in their securities filings that at least 80 percent of their male employees took paternity leave, regardless of the length.

he largest group of 47 percent said the average length per child was "one month to less than three months," followed by 25 percent who said "two weeks to less than one month."

This is Japan how dare take longer than that paternity leave, unless want to get demoted.

https://metropolisjapan.com/glen-wood-paternity-leave/

Sam reason so many male staff stay at work as late as possible. They dont want to spend time with their family. They would rather nap at work or sip canned coffee and smoke cigs with their coworkers.