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27% of nursery schools need psychological support for staff

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Perhaps they need a better hiring process because it seems as though they are hiring the wrong type of people. Taking care of children, even your own, takes a QUALIFIED person who can control their own emotions and see things from the children's point of view. There is too much self pity out there these days. They are children! Not Adults! Treat them as such. PS: I wonder how much money was spent for all the statistics compiled for this story.

-8 ( +4 / -12 )

100% of companies everywhere could support their staff better.

At early childhood facilities I'd say the biggest problem in Japan is extremely underpaid women. They are being used in mass to do a high stress job with long hours for the same pay as a a convinience store worker at times.

It gets to you when you are a carer, educated, and with people expecting a lot from you for nothing.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

They need more reasonable working hours and regular annual leave, as does most of the population.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

I agree with since1981. Anyone who needs "psychological support" in order to work with tiny children is in the wrong job. Perhaps they should become psychological support staff instead. Then they could support each other.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

wonder how this compares to US, Denmark, England or Australia?

i think retired people should get more involved. it is good for their brains(dementia is offset by stimuli), they have a wealth of knowledge and could free up younger workers.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The pay sucks, why do it, ah mental disorder. Work in a Tokyo bonds office and get a huge salary (still mental disorder) work with children who are after all the future and be derived that's totally backwards. Again look at how they do things in Northen Europe copy it and finally become a leader in Asia.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Anyone who needs "psychological support" in order to work with tiny children is in the wrong job

Not really. Crappy work conditions could burn the best workers ever after a time.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

this ariticle is trying to cram as much info as possible into a few paragraphs without any real sense of coherence. in one paragraph over 700 nurseries have staff that need mental help. but then the next paragraph says it's just over 500 nurseries. which is it? the only important figure i got out of this was that 7% of nursery staff want to quit. that seems appropriate for most companies i think.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

with private nursing schools lagging behind public ones in addressing the issue.

The article doesn't show that the private schools actually have the issue.

a government survey showed ... Some 77% of publicly certified nursery schools have such a system, while only 25% to 41% of privately operated or other facilities are equipped with one.

But do the privately operated facilities have as many staffers experiencing these emotional burdens as publicly operated facilities? 

The story doesn't give a break down of the statistics from the survey. If privately operated facilities do not exhibit such problems then they wouldn't be in needed of mental health services for their workers.

dealing with relationships with children's parents, providing support for them is necessary, as well as raising the salaries of underpaid staff.

I suspect that workers in privately operated facilities / services are more satisfied with their salaries than those in publicly operated facilities. I have read several stories of former public day-care workers who quit for jobs in the private sector and have thrived with the relative flexibility of their subsequent arrangements.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

I can understand this to a certain extent. I used to teach children's Sunday school about 30 years ago. I did it so the parents could pay attention to the services. I got no support or compensation from them. One day during the break, one of the children tripped and fell while in the play area. His mother chewed my ass in front of everyone, as if I should have prevented it. Needless to say, I quit after that.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

719 operators of nursery schools, about 27 percent of those responding, said they believe their facilities have staff in need of mental health care or actually had staff who received treatment.

Just the type of 'potentially explosive' staff you want looking after little kids (who can be a nightmare to control )... Sounds hellish to me.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Improve working conditions such as pay, longer paid leave and less working hours and you won't have to spend money on psychological treatment for staff.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I agree Aly. 

So how do we go about making for improved working conditions? 

I think the community needs to have a good long think about why it is that the government dominated system is under-performing so badly. 

I think workers who choose to take a job in child care should be happy, and the kids are well looked after, and the parents who choose to use services are happy, and (of course) all families that wish to use services have access to them.

How can the community best hope to achieve those outcomes, where individual staffers and individual parents are happy, and kids are well looked after?

I believe that the existing system itself is the problem, and therefore more tax payer money won't fix it. I think a thorough rethink and overhaul of the system is in order, for there to be a hope of achieving the desired outcomes.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

My daughter has worked at 3 different daycare centers over the past 11 years, she says the ones run by the corporations are the worst, they break laws, are stingy with money and want you to work overtime without compensation. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and taken advantage of by both the companies and parents, the parents seem to think the job of raising the children is the whole responsibility of the preschools, some make no attempt to even toilet train their own children or even feed them a healthy meal, bring them to school sick, refuse to pick them up when they are, and some even forget to pick them up after work.

My daughter now works at a facility that is not Government run, but is not a corporation, she is much happier now. Working with children really takes a toll on the body, most people who work there have bad backs, and shoulder problems, all kids want to be held, and a lot of parents don't even want to do that, so the teachers do a lot of that.

My son who works at a convenience store makes more money than she does, spending 4 million yen on an education for a job with that low of pay is only for those with a passion for caring for children!

Most of the people who seek psychological treatment need to do so because of the work environment, and other teachers with bad attitudes!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

But do the privately operated facilities have as many staffers experiencing these emotional burdens as publicly operated facilities? 

The story doesn't give a break down of the statistics from the survey. If privately operated facilities do not exhibit such problems then they wouldn't be in needed of mental health services for their workers.

The psychological stresses workers are exposed to - ensuring the safety of children and dealing with parents - are the same whether you work for a private or public one, so why would the "emotional burdens" differ?

I suspect that workers in privately operated facilities / services are more satisfied with their salaries than those in publicly operated facilities. I have read several stories of former public day-care workers who quit for jobs in the private sector and have thrived with the relative flexibility of their subsequent arrangements.

I have scoured the internet looking for sources which say that nursery school workers at private schools in Japan make more money than those at public ones, but came up empty. The relevant articles I could find indicated that nursery school workers at both private and public facilities are underpaid and leaving their profession with no real distinction between the two.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The psychological stresses workers are exposed to - ensuring the safety of children and dealing with parents - are the same whether you work for a private or public one

I'm not sure about that. Is there nothing different at all between public and private facilities? I have (and currently) use both types, and the way the two are operated are different. At least the private one that I use is very service oriented. The public one is not so much that way.

I have scoured the internet looking for sources which say that nursery school workers at private schools in Japan make more money than those at public ones, but came up empty.

I did a search now for the private operator that I use and "salary" and found a range of salaries for it at hoiku-shigoto.com. The top of the range I could find with my brief search was handily over 5 million yen a year, as the starting rate.

One story that I remember off the top of my head was an article at Bloomberg, fairly recently. I recall it started out talking about a worker who quit a public day care job, and after going through the intricacies of the overall situation in Japan, ultimately wound up by noting that the worker who had quit the public day care job was now in a private baby sitting type job on far better pay and more attractive hours.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-15/japan-s-labor-woes-begin-before-birth-as-nursery-teachers-flee

An interesting thing is that it notes "non-licensed nurseries" typically pay less "because they need to make up for the lack of subsidies".

That subsidies exist tells me where the problem is. There should be a free, competitive market for the provision of services. Not favouring some operators over others. 

This one also mentions subsidies:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/worker-shortage-drives-japanese-companies-into-child-care

How about this - cut the subsidies and cut taxes for parents who are raising children?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

My son who works at a convenience store makes more money than she does, spending 4 million yen on an education for a job with that low of pay is only for those with a passion for caring for children!

I am constantly amazed at the ignorance and contempt that come through these boards. Middleoftheroad makes some really good, solid and matter-of-fact points above about one of the most thankless and underpaid jobs in Japan, and people here 'downvote'. Not that those opinions are worthy ones anyway, but the ignorance is still astounding nonetheless.

FWIW - from what I know about the industry, too, Middleoftheroad's comments above pretty much sum things up. To make things worse, greedy (or perhaps desperate) business people are still trying to muscle in on an already over-saturated industry to make a quid. The fallout of this is, of course, ever higher expectations from employers for lower pay. It's outta control!

0 ( +2 / -2 )

How about this - cut the subsidies and cut taxes for parents who are raising children?

A tax cut directed at a specific group (parents with children in this case) to enable them to do something (put their kids in daycare) is a subsidy.

I did a search now for the private operator that I use and "salary" and found a range of salaries for it at hoiku-shigoto.com. The top of the range I could find with my brief search was handily over 5 million yen a year, as the starting rate.

One story that I remember off the top of my head was an article at Bloomberg, fairly recently. I recall it started out talking about a worker who quit a public day care job, and after going through the intricacies of the overall situation in Japan, ultimately wound up by noting that the worker who had quit the public day care job was now in a private baby sitting type job on far better pay and more attractive hours.

That is by no means a sound basis for asserting that private daycare providers pay their workers more. Literally it just says one person took a babysitting job (not the same as working at a private nursery school), you cannot infer anything useful from that anecdote.

I read the Bloomberg article as well and despite being focused on the low pay of nursery workers it draws no distinction between those working at private and public ones. I assume if such a distinction existed the article, or numerous others written on the same subject, would have mentioned it.

An interesting thing is that it notes "non-licensed nurseries" typically pay less "because they need to make up for the lack of subsidies".

I am going to assume that non-licensed nurseries are private ones, so this would seem to undercut your argument that they get better pay (though this is not to say that all private nurseries are unlicensed, it would seem safe to say that all public ones are).

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A tax cut directed at a specific group (parents with children in this case) to enable them to do something (put their kids in daycare) is a subsidy.

A subsidy is when the government taxes people, and then gives a fraction back to certain privileged vested interests, with no relation at all to service or performance.

When parents with children are left with their own money, they take their money where they are able to get the service that they demand at the price they are willing to pay.

I took the time to read through the bloomberg article that I posted once again, and I'd encourage all to read it too. It talks about how Abe is "yet to identify how to fund a promised 2 percent raise for nursery teachers." It talks about how a CEO of an operator "wants the government to ease regulations and stop controlling pay rates."

It is disturbing that the government is controlling pay rates for workers, and indicative of the true source of the problem. If left to free market forces wages would go up, and this could help relieve the shortage of day care service that so many parents are facing.

this would seem to undercut your argument that they get better pay

Yes I stand corrected there, although unfortunately the reason I was wrong about it was because of the subsidies system creating an unfair playing field (not because of a failure of a free competitive market to boost wages). As the bloomberg article noted even the non-publicly operated (but licensed) facilities are still under the thumb of the government in terms of the wages that are paid. It also contrasts the attitude of the bureaucrat at Setagaya ward office who thinks keeping a lid on the cost of service is tops, versus parents who simply want to be able to access services at all.

I am unclear on why anyone here at JapanToday would seek to defend the status quo with Japan's current system, and this is more than 4 years into Abe's prime minister-ship in which he made fixing this problem one of his main goals. At some point I think people (for the sake of we parents) need to see the reality, which is that the government has proven itself not capable of running such services.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A subsidy is when the government taxes people, and then gives a fraction back to certain privileged vested interests, with no relation at all to service or performance.

By definition a subsidy can include either a direct payment or a tax reduction intended to promote some activity or help a designated group. Any economist will verify this simple fact.

I'm making this point not just to randomly poke holes in what you are saying, but because I think it is important. From what I have been reading, I agree with that CEO you quote as saying that the regulations controlling pay rates at nursery schools are a big obstacle. And they are subject to those regulations because they accept subsidies which require them.

Doing away with, or at least easing, those regulations so as to allow pay to go up would probably help them to attract more people and alleviate that problem. Rising wages would also of course raise the cost of daycare, so subsidies of some sort would still be necessary if working people are to be able to afford it. So while I agree that changing the regulations would help, I don't agree that subsidies can end. Conversely they should probably increase.

Whether that increase takes the form of direct payments to schools as it does now or tax reductions to parents is debatable and I'm not sure based on the evidence before me which would be the better way to go. But subsidies have to exist, otherwise all nursery care providers will face the same predicament as unlicensed ones - provide substandard service at a price people can afford or adequate service at a price most people can't afford. Its a lose-lose situation that should be avoided.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

At least 27% of nursery schools in Japan are in need of psychological support for their staff

whats the mental stress in this job -

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

By definition a subsidy can include either a direct payment or a tax reduction 

I have never seen a subsidy defined as the latter, but if we want to call letting people keep their own money in exchange for looking after their own families a subsidy, then I'm cool with that. It's the substance that counts.

Doing away with, or at least easing, those regulations so as to allow pay to go up would probably help them to attract more people and alleviate that problem. Rising wages would also of course raise the cost of daycare, so subsidies of some sort would still be necessary if working people are to be able to afford it.

See this is the interesting thing. Do we really know this to be true?

First, deregulation of the sector (and elimination of the bureacrats who attempt to run it) implies that taxes can be cut (OK, in Japan's case it will only trim the size of the deficit I suppose... but hey it's a step in the right direction).

Second, and probably more importantly in this case, different people have different desires for level and types of service. The cost of a diverse range of services should naturally come to differ, if is allowed to be so. Those families who are willing to pay more for certain extra value service (as they judge) would be able to obtain them. This is not so much the case now, because everyone basically has to take whatever they can get. One of the consequences of some families selecting higher cost services is that cheaper (yet still adequate) services would be freed up for use by others. But as we stand, with costs kept artificially low the demand for those limited services is high, and the costs being kept low has resulted in supply shortages. I think this is the source of the waiting-list problem.

I don't agree that subsidies can end. Conversely they should probably increase.

In principle I do not like subsidies (by the definition that I know), but if there must be subsidies I would rather the money is given directly to the consumers of the services. Let the users decide how to spend the money, rather than some person in a ward office.

But subsidies have to exist, otherwise all nursery care providers will face the same predicament as unlicensed ones - provide substandard service at a price people can afford or adequate service at a price most people can't afford.

I understand the sentiment, but again question if what we have is actually any better. I saw one estimate today from Nakamura, the CEO of a private operator, that suggested there were some several hundreds of thousands of children unable to get into nursery schools. Whether people can afford it or not is unfortunately not even the issue, since service is non-existant for so many. Subsidies don't seem to work.

Personally I believe most families with double-income parents can afford to pay more than they do currently. Yes, this is not true in all cases. But my family can certainly afford to pay more, and we will if it means we can access desirable service. As for those families who are less fortunate, I'm for ensuring they have adequate support from the government, but it should be targeted support, rather than subsidies for selected providers. Letting people deduct a certain degree of child care costs from their taxes could be one way to acheive this. Those on higher incomes will invairably pay higher taxes due to the graduated income brackets (and higher consumption tax too). 

Someone mentioned further up the comments about how parents expect teachers to raise their children for them. I agree with that criticism, and if we take it to the logical conclusion, it ought be the case that in principle, parents responsibility to select and pay for any child care they wish to use, too. I do believe that most families have the capacity to look after their children, and I think that capacity could be improved further if their taxes weren't being ineffectively spent funding a system that isn't producing the results demanded. (And we ought target public funding at helping the needy only.)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Do they really get paid so poorly, must be more than 1000yen per hour no? Minimum wage for people caring for the future of the country should be up asap.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Minimum wage for people caring for the future of the country should be up asap.

As a parent, I'd happily pay more in order to get service.

But government's existing involvement in setting of wages seems to be part of the problem. The government simply doesn't know exactly what the "right" wage level is in every city and town across the country - it can't know and no one can.

This is why I think we ought cut out the middleman (the government bureaucracy) and pay directly to those who are willing to actually do the good work of providing parents with child care services. We consumers can surely get far better value for money that way, and the service providers will receive the rewards of their efforts. The bureaucracy would get nothing, in return for providing so many parents with nothing. The bureaucracy would be able to focus their resources on problems that they can fix.

For parents who have to pay tax, and still don't get child care service, it's a very bad deal at present. No parent who does not receive child care services as demanded should be expected to pay taxes which effectively subsidize the child care services provided to other parents.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

As for those families who are less fortunate, I'm for ensuring they have adequate support from the government, but it should be targeted support, rather than subsidies for selected providers. Letting people deduct a certain degree of child care costs from their taxes could be one way to acheive this. Those on higher incomes will invairably pay higher taxes due to the graduated income brackets (and higher consumption tax too).

This might make sense, I'm not familiar enough with the entirety of the system to know which way is more efficient. Whatever the case a subsidy of some form (either tax relief for parents or direct subisdies to the schools) will have to be a part of it.

Personally I believe most families with double-income parents can afford to pay more than they do currently. Yes, this is not true in all cases. But my family can certainly afford to pay more, and we will if it means we can access desirable service.

I think most families on double incomes would be very hard pressed to pay more. The average household has a (usually male) bread winner taking home the main salary, and a (usually female) worker in a job that, owing to the weird way the tax system works, is usually designed to keep their income under 1 million Yen annually (though that is slated to rise to 1.5 million Yen). With nursery school fees at around 40,000 Yen per month, just putting one kid in would wipe out about half of the second income by itself. With 2 kids, the entire second salary would be devoted solely to nursery care (thus making having a job largely pointless as the wife could take care of the kids herself and be in basically the same financial situation as if she was working).

Given that salaries for people in child-rearing ages are so low in Japan right now, even the main bread winner's salary is probably barely going to be able to cover basic expenses, so raising the cost of daycare would likely push it out of economic reach of the majority of young families.

And we also have the fact that Japan needs people to have more, rather than fewer kids, and thus the government has an active interest in reducing the costs of parenting as much as possible. It might be advisable for it to do so through targeted tax subsidies as you suggest, but whatever the means through which it does so the net cost of daycare to families should ideally be going down rather than up as you seem to be suggesting.

>

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I think most families on double incomes would be very hard pressed to pay more. The average household has a (usually male) bread winner taking home the main salary, and a (usually female) worker in a job that, owing to the weird way the tax system works, is usually designed to keep their income under 1 million Yen annually (though that is slated to rise to 1.5 million Yen).

I think we can debate this.

In my part of Tokyo, to even get in the raffle to have a chance of scoring a place in public day care, both parents at minimum have to be working "full-time" (7+ hours per day 5 days a week).

Therefore in most cases the current system means familes where the spouse has a low income under 1 million yen will not get high enough priority to be able to access day care, in the first place. They would typically be only working part-time if earning such a low income (often in order to retain the spouse tax deduction).

But for arguments sake, if we take the extreme case of a lower income spouse working a full-time minimum wage job, they will be earning upwards of 1.4 million yen a year, by my estimation. For the sake of remaining in the workforce, I believe some parents would still choose to put that entire second income towards child care, if need be, which is something like 100,000 yen per month. (This is how the spouse in my household thinks about it, although fortunately we are both doing better than that.)

That is an extreme case - I do not believe that most full-time working spouses are on the minimum wage, so typically they will be making more. The minimum wage is the lower bound, after all - not the average wage.

Also, one kid is also likely to cost less than the other due to decreasing costs as the children get bigger.

With 2 kids, the entire second salary would be devoted solely to nursery care (thus making having a job largely pointless as the wife could take care of the kids herself and be in basically the same financial situation as if she was working).

I agree that some might see it that way, but others would see the spouse working as an investment in the future, for example, and other spouses like to get out in the community etc etc. There is a great diversity amongst people. And if the spouse is both working full-time and making more than the minimum wage then they could benefit financially too - I believe this is the typical case.

whatever the means through which it does so the net cost of daycare to families should ideally be going down rather than up as you seem to be suggesting.

Well my suggestion is that the free market be left to set prices, so that the natural balance between supply and demand be found. In a free competitive market a diverse range of services will develop, with diverse levels of pricing. But any increase in cost needs to be compared with the reduction in taxes.

First priority ought to be guaranteeing that services are available. But the current system fails to meet even this minimum objective.

If the free market is permitted to develop, then I believe the minimum objective would largely be met. The secondary objective would then be ensuring that those without sufficient means are provided for adequately so that they too can access child care services. This is why I propose eliminating taxes for those raising children. It strikes me as silly that we as a community tax parents who are raising children, and then in return for those taxes fail to provide so many of them with child care service.

But if most parents could keep their own money and access service via a free competitive market, I believe most will be able to cover the expense, and the ability to choose whether or not to use service would be a great improvement for many. (Given that the public bureaucracy that attempts to run this system could be eliminated as a result, the communities overall resources to produce the same level of service should go down to some extent.)

Then the focus could shift to supporting those at the bottom who need it most. Personally, I feel somewhat guilty that I (after a time) gained access to a public nursery near our home. That comes potentially at the expense of other families who may be doing it tougher than in my household. When my household is bucketed in with the needy it reduces their chances of accessing service. If I had more options to choose from, I might opt to pay more for another option, and the slot which my child currently occupies there could be taken by a more needy household on a lower income.

No one can know exactly what level prices for different types of service would settle at. But in any case the price levels would be mutally agreed by service providers and parents. Once this market develops then adjusting the levels of assistance for the needy can be adjusted accordingly.

I think Japan should try a drastic overhaul like this, given the dire situation that parents are currently in. One of the mothers at the public day care I use told me she "planned" to have each of her 3 kids in April so as to maximise her chances of getting them in daycare!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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