Tokyo is turning to a 4-day work week in a desperate attempt to get women to have more babies as birthrate plunges [View all]

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https://fortune.com/2024/12/07/tokyo-japan-4-day-work-week-oldest-population-birth-rate/

Tokyo is turning to a 4-day work week in a desperate attempt to help Japan shed its unwanted title of ‘world’s oldest population’

Japan is facing a population crisis—so Tokyo, its largest city, will try to solve the problem with something new: a four-day work week.

Starting in April, the Tokyo Metropolitan government, one of the country’s largest employers, is set to allow its employees to work only four days a week. It is also adding a new “child care partial leave” policy, which will allow some employees to work two fewer hours per day. The goal is to help employees who are parents balance childcare and work, said Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike.


“We will continue to review work styles flexibly to ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events such as childbirth or child-rearing,” Koike said in a speech this week during the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly’s regular session, the Japan Times reported.

The country’s total fertility rate, which represents the number of children a woman has in her lifetime, stood at 1.2 in 2023, and in Tokyo, the birth rate was even lower at 0.99. To maintain a broadly stable population, a birth rate of 2.1 is required, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The median age of a Japanese citizen is 49.9, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. In the U.S., the median age is 38.9.