The government adopted Wednesday a draft blueprint to alleviate pressures from an aging society, pledging to narrow the wage disparity between regular and nonregular workers and to pay staff better at nurseries for children and day care centers for the elderly.
The plan will be formally adopted by the Cabinet at the end of this month and the proposals are expected to be included in the campaign pledges of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito as they contest seats in the Upper House election in July.
Improvement in working conditions for the nation's ever-increasing numbers of nonregular workers, which now account for about 40 percent of the workforce, will push up the total amount of wages and help boost consumption and growth, the 25-page policy paper argues.