In a bid to encourage men to devote more time to child-rearing, and to keep more mothers in the workforce, a labor ministry panel is eyeing introducing a quota system as part of a two-year parental-leave plan that would require the participation of the father as a prerequisite for eligibility.
The panel is set to finish up discussions by the end of this year, with an eye to submitting a bill to revise the child care and family care leave law to the Diet next year.
The plan is to extend the current maximum of 18 months to two full years. It comes as lawmakers struggle with rectifying the shortage of day care centers, which forces many female workers to quit their jobs when they fail to find a slot at such facilities for their child.