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 — historically a stark gender gap in Japan — 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, secondary reporting citing the Ministry's own 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. The certification measures compliance with input targets (leave-uptake rates, overtime limits) rather than downstream outcomes, and — because participation is voluntary — the sources reviewed do not include an independent study isolating how much of any observed gain is caused by the scheme itself versus self-selection by already family-friendly employers.

Read the full analysis: https://www.nissay.co.jp/enjoy/keizai/185.html