Toyooka promotes short-hour jobs for prospective workers with child care concerns
The city of Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, is attempting to solve the dilemma facing mothers with child care time constraints who still want to work. By promoting the introduction of jobs with working hours as short as two hours per day, two days per week, ...
The government has to get more serious about maintaining a sustainable national budget.
Nursery providing specialist care for disabled children helps Tokyo moms return to work
Three-year-old Asahi Watanabe, who was born with a genetic disease that requires the use of a feeding tube for hydration, receives care from nursery staff at his Tokyo home — an unusual arrangement in Japan where family members of children with disabilities are often ...
Worker shortage eating into Japanese day care centers' profits, survey shows
The profitability of private preschools, nurseries and certified day care centers plummeted from fiscal 2016 to in fiscal 2018, a Cabinet Office survey has found. The drop is believed to be the result of rising labor costs caused by the shortage of child care workers. Profit ...
Record low of 16,772 children on day care waiting lists in Japan, welfare ministry says
The ministry says the lists are at their shortest since it began tracking them in 1994, but demand is expected to grow when free services kick off in October.
Foreign day care worker reported for physical abuse against children in Kitakyushu
A foreign worker at an unlicensed day care facility in Kitakyushu has been reported for physical abuse against children while on duty, and the allegations were confirmed Tuesday by municipal officials. The incident came to light when video footage showing the man slapping a 2-year-old ...
Instead of simply offering free preschool education and day care services, the government needs to take further steps to make sure that the services are available to all families that need them.
Local governments in Japan get creative in bid to secure child care workers
Local governments are desperately trying to recruit licensed child care workers in a bid to address an acute shortage in day care staff. As part of their strategy, they are emphasizing favorable labor conditions, such as short commuting distances and reasonable working hours, in a ...
Financial woes leading some nurseries created under government plan to close doors
Several nurseries provided by private companies for their employees in line with the government's attempt to resolve the chronic lack of day-care facilities are closing or are thinking of doing so due to financial difficulties, Kyodo News learned Saturday. At least eight such nurseries have ...
Day care centers in Japan need some help with soiled diapers
For a country with a reputation for cleanliness and hygiene, Japan has taken waste disposal in an unsavory direction with parents usually being asked to carry their children's soiled diapers home from day care. To lighten the load on concerned parents, some municipalities are now ...
How Japan can fix its gaping gender gap
The World Economic Forum's 2017 gender gap index ranks Japan 114th out of the 144 countries surveyed — this must change.
Waiting lists persist at Japan's municipal day care facilities
A 32-year-old woman recently received a letter of rejection from Meguro Ward in Tokyo saying her 3-month-old son had failed to land a slot in any of the 10 municipally funded day care facilities she had applied for. "I didn't think it would be this ...
