The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says the new arrangement, which begins in April, could give employees three days off every week.
capital is set to introduce a four-day work week for government employees, in its latest push to help working mothers and boost record-low fertility rates.It separately announced another policy that will allow parents with children in grades one to three in elementary schools to trade off a bit of their salary for the option to clock out early.
Japan's fertility rate, which has seen a precipitous fall for many years, reached another record low in June, even as the government ramped up efforts to encourage young people to get married and start families.Only 727,277 births were recorded last year, with the fertility rate - the number of children a woman has in her lifetime - dropping to a fresh low of 1.2, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Grueling hours have long been a problem for corporate Japan where workers often suffer from health hazards and, in extreme cases, "karoshi," a term meaning death by over work.As in other countries, women are often under pressure to choose between their career or family, but Japan's unique overtime work culture makes pregnancy and raising children especially daunting.
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