The Japanese Government promises measures to combat the decline in birth rates

March 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, announced this Friday his commitment to implement measures that allow 85 percent of men to take paternity leave by 2030 with the aim of combating the decline in birth rates.

Kishida has also vowed to raise the wages of young workers and increase financial assistance to create a conducive environment for raising children without worries, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

“By the 2030s, Japan’s young population will decline twice as fast as it is today. The next six and seven years will be the last chance to reverse the birth decline,” Kishida added.

In addition, the Japanese Government will announce at the end of March a package of measures to support children, whose births fell below 800,000 in 2022, a record number since they began to be registered in 1899, according to data from the Japanese Government.

While 85.1 percent of women took maternity leave between 2021 and March 2022, only 13.97 percent of men did so out of “concern that taking time off could increase the workload of their peers.

The Japanese prime minister has insisted on his willingness to increase public spending, although without specifying how he is going to finance this budget, which is why some detractors have described this announcement as “electoral propaganda.”

When Japan announced the increase in its military budget, it also expressed its willingness to increase business, income and tobacco taxes.

Japan’s public spending related to family support stood at 2.01 percent of its budget in 2020, lagging behind other developed countries such as Sweden (3.46 percent), the United Kingdom (2.98 percent, percent) or France (2.81 percent).