The BBC today reported that a Japanese Mayor is taking paternity leave. Surely it’s a reflection on the status of work-life balance in Japan that this made the news at all!
A district mayor in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, is going on paternity leave on Saturday, the first local government leader ever to do so.
Hironobu Narisawa, the mayor of the central Bunkyo ward, said he was aiming to change attitudes.
Japanese workers are famously reluctant to take time off after the birth of a child even though Japanese law allows either parent to have up to a year off.
Mr Narisawa’s announcement has been front page news in Japan.
The Mainichi Daily News elaborated on the Mayor’s motivation for going public with his decision:
Narisawa announced his paternity leave on his Twitter page on Wednesday night, saying, “I am delighted to announce the birth of my first son. I would like to enjoy parenting.”
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, there has been no known case in the country in which a local administrative chief, whether male or female, took a child-care leave. Even though a parental leave system for mayors has yet to be established in Bunkyo Ward, Narisawa hopes to promote understanding for men’s involvement in child rearing and pave the way for other male workers.
“I believe men are reluctant to take parental leave because they are worried about salary cuts, the reaction of their colleagues, and its impact on their career paths. I hope my example will contribute to promoting a working environment where male workers can feel comfortable about taking leave for their children,” Narisawa said during a press interview on Thursday. “Through my initiative, I want to prove that paternity leave will not hurt fathers’ careers,” he added.
The mayor’s attempt to lead by example is to be applauded, illustrating as it does the need to back up stated policy with action – preferably from organisational leaders. There is no point in launching work-life balance initiatives in an organisation, when the subtext is that employees are expected to soldier on and only take advantage of workplace flexibility in the event of dire emergency.
The concept of work-life balance is not completely alien in Japan – the Japanese Government launched a Work-Life Balance Charter several years ago, though this strikes me as somewhat aspirational:
The main objectives of the charter are envisioned as three attributes of society, that is, it aims to create a society where (1) people can provide themselves with jobs, (2) have time to lead healthy, affluent lives, and (3) can choose from a diversity of working and living styles. The charter also sets up numerical targets to be achieved in five and ten years to gauge individual fulfillment in several areas.
Additionally, there are no set penalties for organisations that fail to meet any of these targets. Aspirational and toothless. A 2007 survey of Japanese employees reported that 69% worked in organisations without any formal work-life balance policy or initiatives. More recent data, from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, reports that Japanese employees fail to take the annual holiday leave to which they are entitled:
According to a ministry survey last year, workers in Japan took an average of 8.5 vacation days in 2008, or 47.4 percent of the average 18 days available to them.
The government is seeking to raise the percentage to 60 percent by 2012 and 100 percent in 2017.
The new guideline, in line with a Cabinet decision in December on the promotion of vacations, calls for companies to check how many days of vacation each worker takes.
So Mayor Narisawa’s departure from the norm is a welcome step in the right direction, one that will hopefully be followed by similar actions from his governmental colleagues. This kind of cultural change is neither easy nor quick – employees need to see tangible examples of others actively seeking to balance the demands of work and home, while benefiting from the support of their employer.
