Saadet Gökce
03 August 2026•Update: 03 August 2026
The proportion of men in Japan taking child care leave surpassed 50% for the first time in fiscal 2025, local media reported Monday.
The increase comes as the government steps up efforts to encourage more fathers to take parental leave.
The rate rose 10.4 percentage points from a year earlier to 50.9% in fiscal 2025, marking the 13th consecutive annual increase, according to data released Friday by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, Kyodo News reported.
The survey was first conducted in fiscal 1993.
The ministry attributed the increase to gains at smaller workplaces, but women continued to outpace men, with 88.3% taking child care leave. A significant gap also remained in the duration of leave.
Among women, the largest share, at 31.4%, took leave for 12 months to less than 18 months.
For men, the most common leave period was one month to less than three months, accounting for 30.3%.
Recent support measures appear to be paying off, including requiring employers to explain the child care leave system to employees who report a pregnancy or childbirth and introducing a more accessible postnatal paternity leave program.
The survey covered women and men whose children were born between October 2023 and September 2024 and checked whether they had taken child care leave by October 2025.
By workplace size, the rate for men at businesses with five to 29 employees rose to 42.9% from 25.1% in the previous survey, while those with 500 or more employees increased to 60.7% from 53.8%.
The government has set a target of raising the paternity leave rate to 85% by 2030.
The latest survey covered about 6,300 workplaces.
The efforts come as Japan faces deepening demographic challenges.
The population of Japanese nationals fell below 120 million for the first time in more than four decades, the government said last month.
Last year, the Diet passed legislation to help reverse the country's declining birthrate, including larger child allowances and expanded parental leave benefits.
