A government panel announced a package of measures Thursday to increase the number of nursing care homes for the elderly and to make day care services available for more children.
The government seeks to create new homes to accommodate 500,000 elderly by the beginning of 2020 and to reduce the number of children on day care waiting lists by 500,000 by March 2018, according to the package decided by the panel of ministers and experts led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
But some observers cast doubt on whether Abe's measures are realistic given the shortages of workers in the nursing and day care sectors.
As concrete steps to achieve the goals are not outlined, critics also say the package reflects Abe's intention to charm voters ahead of the House of Councilors election next summer.
The package also includes measures aimed at preventing people from quitting jobs to take care of aging family members and at helping people with children return to work.
"We seek to implement the measures immediately through all-out efforts by the Cabinet," Abe said at the meeting held in his office.
The package is part of government goals to boost Japan's gross domestic product by 22 percent to ¥600 trillion ($5 trillion) by around 2020 and the fertility rate to 1.8, in part by eliminating the need to quit work to care for elderly family members.
Japan's birthrate has fallen from over 4 in the late 1940s to 1.43 in 2013.
The measures will be partly financed by the supplementary budget for fiscal 2015 and the fiscal 2016 budget.