Why does paternity leave remain low in Japan?

Because most Japanese male employees are too weak to apply for it.

For the same reason staff don't take their holidays, stay late and agree to transferring to another part of the country. They are scared of speaking up and being different.

Only in Japan? Really?

It is very easy to answer to this question. Due to the bad idea that "men are obliged to work harder than women, because you are male." I think the same idea is still remaing in many workplaeces. Here is an example. Most of theachers, especially in junior high school or high school, are supervising club activities. Recently each teachers have to take care of more than one club. For me, there is no complaint because we understand that we have shortages of teachers and we chose to be a teacher. The problem is that most of male workers are allocated baseball club, basketball club, tennis club and so on, on the other hand, female workers usually are allocated not so active club. And superiors often say "because you are male, supervise clubb of sports." Don't you think it's absurd? This is one of bad conditions in workplaces. So, I think you can understnd the reason that low rate of paternity leave connot decrease.

Because nothing has changed

-selah

The intersection of toxic masculine gender roles and a toxic work culture.

RecklessAug. 8  09:32 pm JST

@katsu78, and don't forget toxic feminine privilege doctrine.

Man, if you want me not to forget every imaginary concept someone just makes up, we'll be here all day.

Because of the slave mentality?

Company "loyalty" might account for some of it. But i bet more than a fair chunk is due to them not wanting to. Easier to be at work dealing with your work stuff, than to be at home helping mum with impossible tasks like cleaning up, doing laundry, changing nappies, or even cooking. Many of the guys i know in the office, and privately, didnt even want to be there for the birth... "Just get it done and let me see the baby when its over". They are even ok with letting the wife go back to her parents place for a month before, and a month after the birth, even if it means missing the birth/only seeing the kid on weekends for the first month.

Not all Japanese are like that of course, and many fathers strive to earn the "ikumen" label (commonly known around the world as "being a real father"). But here child raising is the mothers job - Its just culture, its what their parents did, what their friends do etc.

And of those that do want to take leave... it could be like my company "Oh we dont have a system for processing paternity leave so its not possible to take it". So i just said "im going on 1 month leave, dock my pay if you want". Turns out they dont have a system for docking pay either... yay