It was tallied that 1 in 10 fathers of newborns (10.2%) took parental leave last year. Both the number of fathers on parental leave and the parental leave usage rate hit a record high. In contrast, the parental leave usage rate among mothers who gave birth last year edged down from a year earlier.
According to the 2024 parental leave statistics by the National Data Office on the 17th, the parental leave usage rate among parents of children born in 2024 was 34.7%. That was up 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier. The parental leave usage rate refers to the share of eligible people who actually took parental leave. Based on babies born last year, the usage rate for fathers was 10.2%, up 2.7 percentage points in one year. For mothers, it was 72.2%, down 1 percentage point.
Of the 206,226 people who took parental leave in total, fathers accounted for 29.2%. That was up 3.5 percentage points from a year earlier and a record high. Mothers made up 70.8%.
An official at the National Data Office said, "There is an aspect in which fathers' parental leave has substituted for mothers' parental leave due to the '6+6 parental leave' program." Under this program, when parents of a child under 18 months take parental leave sequentially or at the same time, they receive 100% of their regular wages as parental leave benefits for the first six months.
Expanding the child's age to 8 or younger or up to 2nd grade in elementary school, the number of people who took parental leave last year was 206,226, up 4% from 198,218 the year before. Of these, fathers on parental leave numbered 60,117, up 18.3% from 50,815 a year earlier. Over the same period, mothers on parental leave totaled 146,109, down 0.9% from 147,403 in 2023.
By timing of parental leave use, mothers most often took leave immediately after childbirth. In contrast, fathers showed a higher usage rate when their children were age 6–7, around the time they enter elementary school.
By size of business sites, the parental leave usage rate was relatively high at large companies with 300 or more employees. By occupational institutional sector, both mothers (81.1%) and fathers (16.1%) exceeded the average in public administration.