Japan's Kurumin Certification for Child-Rearing-Supportive Employers

Under Japan's Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children, employers with more than 100 staff must file a public action plan for work-life-balance support. Companies that meet their plan's goals and satisfy the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's published standards can apply for Kurumin certification, and higher-performing employers can reach Platinum Kurumin status; a Try Kurumin entry tier was added in April 2022.

Certification standards are numeric and gender-specific: employers must reach defined thresholds for the share of eligible female employees taking childcare leave (around 75% or higher) and, separately, growing minimum thresholds for male childcare-leave uptake, alongside limits on excessive overtime. The Ministry publishes and periodically tightens these criteria, most recently in a 2025 revision, and maintains a public prefecture-by-prefecture register of certified employers, which can be used in public-procurement scoring and recruitment marketing.

As of February 2025, the Ministry's published certification register put the cumulative total at 4,943 Kurumin-certified companies and 724 Platinum Kurumin companies, up from a much smaller base at the scheme's 2007 launch.