In fiscal 2024, 40.5 percent of eligible Japanese men took childcare leave, up from 30.1 percent the year before. The figures come from the Basic Survey of Equal Employment of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
An older survey commissioned by the ministry, reported in 2014, asked men who had wanted to take leave but did not why. Of them, 29.1 percent said the workplace had an atmosphere in which it was hard to take childcare leave. Another 25.1 percent said it was a workplace where time off was hard to take at any time.