A comparative survey on parenting in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, France and Sweden by the National Women's Education Center, Japan, underscores problems that Japanese fathers must deal with. The problems range from the few hours they spend with their children, and their dependence on wives for disciplining their children, to their lack of preparation to be fathers in the first place. Social circumstances may be responsible for some problems, but fathers can help themselves by raising their levels of awareness.
The 2005 survey carried out by NWEC, an independent administrative agency, covered about 1,000 parents with children 12 years old or younger, in each of the countries named.
The survey found that Japanese fathers spent an average of 3.1 hours a day with their children -- compared with 3.3 hours in a 1994 survey. This amount of time was the second shortest after South Korea's 2.8 hours. By contrast, Thai fathers spent 5.9 hours -- the longest -- followed by 4.6 hours in both the U.S. and Sweden, and 3.8 hours in France.