Japan's population crisis is prompting its capital, Tokyo, to implement an innovative solution: a four-day workweek.
TL;DR
- Tokyo is exploring a four-day workweek to address Japan's declining birth rate and aging population.
- The Tokyo Metropolitan government allows staff a four-day week and a childcare partial leave policy.
- This initiative aims to help working parents balance careers and family responsibilities, especially women.
- A four-day workweek may reduce stress and improve work-life balance, potentially encouraging larger families.
Beginning in April of this year, the Tokyo Metropolitan government, a significant employer in the nation, began permitting its staff to work a four-day week. Additionally, a new “childcare partial leave” policy is being introduced, enabling certain employees to reduce their daily work hours by two. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike stated the objective is to assist working parents in managing their childcare and professional responsibilities.
“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 during the Tokyo Metropolitan During the Assembly's scheduled December 2024 session, the Japan Times reported.
Japan's birth rate has reached an all-time low for the first six months of the year, prompting the implementation of new policies. From January to June, the country recorded 339,280 births, around 10,000 fewer births than during the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.
Other nations besides Japan are also experiencing a drop in birth rates. By 2100, New Yorker, suggests that 97% of the world’s countries will likely fall below the replacement level, which is the birth rate needed to keep a population steady. In 2023, South Korea, which has the world's lowest fertility rate, saw dog strollers sell more baby strollers than usual. The UN forecasts a continued rise in the world's population throughout this century, yet some pro-natalists, such as the planet's wealthiest individual and father of 13 Elon Musk, express concern over falling birth rates. Interest rates represent the most significant global challenge on the horizon.
Japan’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). According to the Central Intelligence Agency, the median age of a Japanese citizen is 49.9. The U.S. Median age is 38.9.
Japan is implementing significant measures to address its declining birth rate. Since the 1990s, the government mandated that businesses provide generous parental leave, supplemented day care with financial aid, and began issuing monetary stipends to parents. This year, the Tokyo administration also initiated its own dating app to assist single individuals in locating a spouse and getting married.
Government figures show that the birth rate has consistently declined for the last eight years.
Adopting a four-day workweek might alleviate some of the fundamental problems linked to Japan's demanding work environment, which disproportionately affects women in the workforce. The gap between men and women when it comes to housework is one of the largest among OECD countries, with women in Japan engaging in five times more unpaid work, such as childcare and elder care, than men, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF reports that over fifty percent of women who had fewer offspring than they desired cited the additional domestic chores a new child would entail as the reason for their reduced family size.
Adopting a four-day workweek has, in certain instances, been demonstrated to enhance fairness in household chores. During a four-day workweek trial involving six countries, men reported dedicating 22% more time to childcare and 23% more time to housework, according to 4 Day Week Global, an organization championing this cause.
It would take a major societal change for the four-day workweek to become more widespread, but numerous experiments over the years have demonstrated that reducing the workweek by one day enhances employee productivity and overall well-being, according to Peter Miscovich. The global head of future of work at real estate services firm JLL.
The benefits of this approach include reduced stress and burnout, improved rest and sleep, lower employee expenses, enhanced focus and concentration during work, and in certain situations, increased “commitment to the organization as a result,” Miscovich informed Fortune.
While four-day workweek tests like the one in Tokyo can be innovative experiments, they may not be the solution that some make them out to be, said Julia Hobsbawm, the founder of workplace consultancy Workathon and author of the book Working Assumptions: What We Thought We Knew About Work Before Covid and Generative AI—And What We Know Now.
“I firmly believe that there is no one-size-fits-all,” Hobsbawm told Fortune.
With working methods becoming more adaptable due to technology and people, it's impossible to assert that a single four-day week model suits every industry, nation, or objective. Entirely.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on Dec. 7, 2024.