Regarding (3), public employees involved in childbirth, childcare, and even nursing care can take advantage of a variety of programs for both men and women, ranging from shorter hours to three-year leaves. More recently, public employees have been able to split their leave into two or three installments and take leave in 30-minute increments, allowing them to take leave as needed. They are also exempt from night work (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.), and overtime is limited to 24 hours per month and 150 hours per year, except in the case of a disaster. In a survey conducted in FY2021, the percentage of male public employees taking childcare leave was 62.8%, and the percentage taking at least five days of combined leave for spouse childbirth and childcare participation increased to 87.1%12. The number of public employees taking childcare leave also increased for both full-time and part-time employees.12 National Personnel Authority, Annual Report, 2022, p.169 & p.171.13 Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, Follow-up on the status of promotion of female national public servants, 6 Dec 2022. https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/gaiyou/jimu/jinjikyoku/pdf/20221206_siryou7.pdf20(2) Promotion of Women’s Activities in the public service Even after the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985, women’s participation in society in Japan has not advanced as much as in other countries. The main reasons are a strong gender-role consciousness that women should ideally retire and stay at home after marriage and childbirth, and a reluctance to appoint women as managers or candidates for management positions on the grounds that women cannot be entrusted with responsible jobs. Women also avoided long working hours, job transfers and a male-dominated workplace culture, and were not motivated to develop their own careers.(3) Raising the mandatory retirement age As Japan’s aging population and declining birthrate have led to a serious labor shortage, and as the starting age for pension benefits was raised, the need for continued employment of older people with a strong work ethic has increased in both the public and private sectors.important issue to be addressed in the future. As described above, the work styles reform has made some progress, but improving long working hours remains an To improve this situation, in 2015, the Act on the Promotion of Women’s Active Engagement in Professional Life was enacted, requiring the national government, local governments, and corporations to monitor the status of women’s activities, analyze problems, set numerical targets, and formulate and disclose action plans. According to statistics for FY2022, the percentage of women in the national public service is around 40%, but the percentage is 28.3% for positions equivalent to unit chief, 14.1% for assistant director, 6.9% for division director, and 5.0% for higher positions (Designated Service）in the Headquarters13. Although the Prime Minister’s Office has taken the initiative to appoint women as vice-ministers of administration and heads of offices, the number of women in managerial positions has not reached the target set by the Council for Gender Equality for 202514. This is largely due to the fact that the percentage of women recruited in the most difficult examinations for cadets was low, but this percentage has been gradually increasing in recent years, reaching 34.5% of those who passed the Comprehensive Service examination and were appointed in FY2022. In order to increase the proportion of female executive officials in the future, it is important to continue to increase the proportion of female recruits, correct inequities based on gender, create an environment in which women can actively take on new challenges by reforming work styles, and ensure a fair merit-based system that does not simply give preferential treatment to women. Since 2001, reappointment has been used to guarantee income during the gap between retirement and the start of pension
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