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Comparison of Parental Leave Policies between Japan and Australia

Comparison of Parental Leave Policies between Japan and Australia. Introduction. Includes all the merits and benefits provided to mothers, fathers or both the parents to smoothen the progress of childcare in the post-natal phase.

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Comparison of Parental Leave Policies between Japan and Australia

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  1. Comparison of Parental Leave Policies between Japan and Australia

  2. Introduction • Includes all the merits and benefits provided to mothers, fathers or both the parents to smoothen the progress of childcare in the post-natal phase. • Maternity, paternity and adoption leave are all a part of parental leave • It facilitates estimate effects of parental institutions and helps shaping the early parent-child relationship and family bonding. • The presentation seeks to find differences in the allowances provided to parents or couples in two of the highest income countries in the world: Japan and Australia.

  3. The comparison is based on the following characteristics: • Generosity involved with the parental leave policies in both countries. • Measurement of the extent to which the leave or grants are gender egalitarian. • Provision of Incentives to couples.  "The benefits by the government are cash grants that can be used to cover the costs of caring for and infant or toddler“ (Waldfogel, 2001) • A further division of the comparable characteristics is into: • Wage replacement policies • Allocation of time period to mother, father or both parents.

  4. Japan • For mothers, 14 weeks of maternity leave is granted. • Paid at 60% of the actual earning, and the leave starts from six weeks before the birth of child. • No leave reserved for paternity or fathers exclusively. • Both the parents can enjoy one year leave as parental leave out of their total leave allotment, unpaid. • Restrictions on the parents: only one parent must take the entire parental leave. If fathers choose to, mothers forfeit their right to any leave post-maternity. • Leave can be granted until child’s first birthday, however, 60% is cut to 30% payment with an advantage of 40% raise in replacement rate if the parent takes up work after that. • Total leave of 58 weeks: one year + 6 weeks before childbirth. Inclusive of 26 full time paid weeks. • Recently, more leaves account for family care or child care reasons. (MHLW, p. 15)

  5. Australia • Leave for mothers or maternity leave entitling 51 weeks in total. All of these are unpaid unlike Japan. No payment whatsoever. • Similar to Japan’s policy, no leave of paternity or father’s leave is granted. • However, parents can share their leave by transferring one week of leave to fathers. • Compulsory for couples to complete all their leave before child’s first birthday. • Incentives are given in other forms recently; “Baby Bonus” with a subsidy of AUS$4,258 per child. (Meyers, 1999) • Moreover, a paid maternity leave for mothers benefit policy is up its way on the legislature. • Total leave of 52 weeks in the shared prospective. Including zero full time paid weeks.

  6. Wage Replacement in terms of Time Period Y axis shows the number of weeks and the bar graph represents the replacement rates in two countries Australia has 52 weeks of parental leave. None of the leave is full time paid. Japan has total parental leave of 58 weeks. 32 weeks are unpaid, while 26 out of 58 are fully paid.

  7. Tabulated Comparison

  8. Generosity and Gender Equality in Parental Leave Policies (Ray et al. 2010) Y-axis shows the points for each policy implementation, out of 5, in this comparative case. Australia has 1 point for additional incentives (baby bonus) and father’s leave (transfer from mothers). Japan, on the other hand has 26 out of 58 weeks, paid. Therefore 3 points out of 5 for wage replacement. Another difference is a negative point on Japan’s profile in the incentives section. The restrictions reduce the chances for the father to take up leave. While, both Australia and Japan have 1 point for father’s leave.

  9. Conclusion • The institutions of mother and father or parents in a child’s early development years produce strength in the bonds established as a family, therefore both Japan and Australia work up a legislature with parental leave laws. However, the designs and techniques employed in the framework differ from each other in accordance with the requirement analysis and the importance given to workforce and population planning in each country. (Ferrarini, 2003)

  10. Reference List • “Comprehensive Study on Issues Concerning Work-Family Life Balance Support” (2008) Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co., Ltd. Cited from: Introduction to the revised Child Care and Family Care Leave Law, MHLW, p. 15. • Ferrarini, T. (2003). Parental leave institutions in eighteen post-war welfare states. (Doctoral dissertation). Stockholm: Sociologiskainstitutionen. • Jane Waldfogel.2001. International Policies Toward Parental Leave and Child Care. Princeton University. pp 98-111. • Meyers, M. K., Gornick, J. C., & Ross, K. E. (1999). Public childcare, parental leave, and employment. Gender and welfare state regimes, 117-46. • Ray, R., Gornick, J. C., & Schmitt, J. (2010). Who cares? Assessing generosity and gender equality in parental leave policy designs in 21 countries.Journal of European Social Policy, 20(3), 196-216.

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