Good practice

Japan's 2022 Child Care Leave Law Reform — Postnatal Paternity Leave (産後パパ育休)

Japan's 2022 Child Care Leave Law amendment created a postnatal paternity leave of up to 28 days within the first 8 weeks of birth. Fathers' uptake rose from 17.1% (FY2022) to 40.5% (FY2024); the government targets 85% by 2030.

17.1% → 40.5%

Fathers' uptake of paternity leave (FY2022–FY2024)

85%

Government target (by 2030)

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), Japan
Period: 2022-present
Keywords: parental leave, fathers, work-life balance, gender equality, childcare

Context

Japan's 2022 Child Care Leave Law amendment created a postnatal paternity leave of up to 28 days within the first eight weeks after birth.

Results

Fathers' uptake of leave rose from 17.1% (FY2022) to 40.5% (FY2024), with a government target of 85% by 2030.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), Japan — accessed 2026-06-21
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: Work-Family Balance Policy — accessed 2026-06-21
World Economic Forum: Could Japan's paternity leave policy narrow the gender gap? (2023) — accessed 2026-06-21
Japan Times: Paternity leave uptake hits record 30% (August 2024) — accessed 2026-06-21

Quality score: 96/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 4% in this catalogue (719 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability2/3

The OECD and UNICEF have cited Japan's postnatal paternity leave as a top-ranked model; South Korea adopted a similar disclosure requirement, demonstrating demonstrated regional influence.

Impact on gender equality1/1

Fathers' uptake more than doubled from 17.1% (FY2022) to 40.5% (FY2024) in a country previously ranked 116th on the WEF Gender Gap Index, directly redistributing childcare burdens.

Effectiveness1/1

The law's explicit target of 30% uptake by FY2025 was surpassed at FY2023 (30.1%), and the FY2024 rate of 40.5% confirms the reform is on track toward the 85%-by-2030 goal.

Efficiency1/1

The reform leverages existing employment-insurance financing and employer reporting infrastructure; incremental legislative mandates rather than costly new programmes drove the uptake jump.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

MHLW publishes annual Basic Survey on Employment Management with verified uptake statistics; WEF, Nippon.com, and the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JIL) independently corroborate the trend.

Sustainability1/1

Embedded in permanent primary legislation with escalating employer disclosure obligations (expanded to 300+ employee companies in 2025) and a 2025 amendment confirming structural institutionalisation.

Achievement / evidence1/1

Fathers' leave uptake rose from 13.97% to 40.5% in three fiscal years, a concrete government-documented achievement tracked by official annual surveys.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

The reform explicitly addresses unequal distribution of care work as a structural driver of Japan's gender pay gap and women's low labour participation; mandatory fathers' leave targets male behaviour, not just women's.

Curator validation1/1

Data from official MHLW surveys, Japan Times reporting, WEF analysis, Mercer legal briefings, and peer-reviewed JIL publications — authoritative and independently corroborated.

Cite this

Evidoria. Japan's 2022 Child Care Leave Law Reform — Postnatal Paternity Leave (産後パパ育休). Persistent ID: 1f5e276c-5379-4346-91b4-896534c99c77.

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