Effective October 1, 2017, revisions of the Child Care Leave Law will come into effect including
an extension of the child care leave period by a further 6 months until a child becomes 2 years old.
PMP would like to advise our clients of some changes that will be required to be made to your
respective child care leave policies. This changes are as directed by the Ministry of Health, Labor
and Welfare published last month in preparation for the upcoming legislative changes.
First of all, the following proposed paragraph needs to be inserted at the end of a section
in the company’s child care leave policy which states the current period of a child care leave.
(To be specific, the new paragraph shall come after the section which defines the leave period that
“starts from the date a child becomes 1 year old and ends on the date that the same child
reaches the age of 18 months).
<Examples of a proposed paragraph to be inserted>
If an employee meets all the required conditions specified below, the employee shall be entitled to
take (extended) child care leave for the number of consecutive days that are necessary to raise
a child until the child reaches 2 years of age. The extended child care leave shall only start
on the day that the child becomes 18 months old.
The required conditions shall be:
(a) Either the employee or their spouse of the employee is already on child care leave to look
after the child one day before the child reaches 18 months old; and
(b) Either of the situations below applies to the case:
(i) Application for kindergarten entry for the child has been rejected, or
(ii) The spouse of the employee who was going to look after the child after the child
reaches 18 months old has been passed away, injured, or become ill and is no longer
capable of raising the said child.
PMP recommends our clients to review all the relevant clauses of their Child Care Leave Policy
and Employee-Employer agreement (“Roshi Kyotei”) that relate to child care leave, and make
the necessary revisions to reflect the upcoming legislative changes.
In addition, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has announced employers’ obligations
“to make their best efforts” from October 1, 2017 to:
1. In addition to publishing their internal policies, employers must ensure they separately
inform their employees of the company’s internal child care leave policy as soon as they
learn that an employee or spouse of an employee is pregnant or has given birth; and
2. Where employer doesn’t already have in place, to introduce a leave system for employees
to allow them to care for their child during the period prior to entering elementary school.
The period of leave to be granted is at the discretion of the employer.
For the case of #2 above, PMP believes that many companies already have a paternity leave
or similar leave policy in place.
For further information regarding samples and changes for the new child care leave policy,
please refer to the homepage of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (in Japanese):
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/koyoukintou/pamphlet/dl/35_01.pdf
Thank you.