The government plans to require companies with over 100 employees to set and disclose paternity leave targets from April 2025 to facilitate fathers' involvement in child-rearing and allow parents to better manage work and family responsibilities, government sources said Monday.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare plans to submit a related bill during the current session of parliament to implement the measure, which would cover around 50,000 companies in Japan, the sources said.
The ratio of men who took paternity leave stood at 17.1% in a survey for the fiscal year from April 2022, far less than the 80.2% among women and far below the government's 2025 target of 50%.
As for companies with 100 employees or less, they will be asked to make efforts to set paternity leave targets but will not be obliged, the sources said.
The disclosure of paternity leave is set to be included in action plans on workplace support for raising children that the government requires companies with over 100 employees to compile, the sources said. The action plans will also include targets on such things as the amount of overtime per full-time worker, they said.
The companies will be asked to submit the action plans to the ministry's labor bureaus and then make them public, the sources said.
The ministry can issue recommendations for companies that do not disclose the targets to do so, they said.
Since April 2023, companies with over 1,000 employees have been required to publish data on the percentage of male workers who have taken paternity leave.
The ministry also plans to submit another bill during the current parliamentary session to expand the scope of the paternity leave data disclosure requirement to companies with over 300 employees from April 2025, the sources said.