The share of eligible public servants in Japan who took paternity leave in fiscal 2024 rose by 5 percentage points from the previous year to a record high of 85.9%, the National Personnel Authority said Friday.
Among them, the proportion of those who took child care leave for more than one month stood at 51.4%, exceeding 50% for the first time ever. The data covered full-time noncareer-track national civil servants who were eligible for paternity leave.
¡°Awareness of child care leave has improved in workplaces, leading to longer periods of paternity leave,¡± a National Personnel Authority official said.
The average length of child care leave was 2.6 months for male workers, compared with 16.4 months for female workers.
The most common length of child care leave for male workers was at least two weeks, but no more than one month, at 40.9%, down 5.4 points, followed by more than one month but no more than three months, at 28.1%, up 3.3 points.
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