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As many parents and parents-to-be will testify, the cost of and access to preschool childcare is often a daunting challenge for them, with the high cost even keeping parents from growing their families, as Early Learning Nation reports. The Japanese city of Tokyo, however, may be set to shake things up for the better.
This is because it recently announced some family-friendly policies, the most significant being that it will be offering free day care to all of Tokyo’s second-born and subsequent preschoolers from September 2025, as the Japan Times reports. This is part of a bid to boost the declining birthrate, aka its well-documented “baby bust.”
An antidote to Japan’s ‘baby bust’
“Japan is facing the crisis of a declining number of children, which isn’t going away,“ Tokyo Governor, Yuriko Koike said, announcing plans to offer free day care for all preschoolers in mid-December 2024, as quoted on the bizwatchers Instagram account.
While many developed countries struggle with the fallout of a declining birthrate, this is a particularly acute problem in Japan, with the country’s prime minister and other high-profile policymakers warning of an imminent demographic crisis.
As the Japan Times details, this new policy will significantly reduce the financial burden on families, and is intended to remove monetary constraints driving families to limit family size. Interestingly, Koike, who has led Tokyo since 2016, was reelected for the third time in July on a platform of boosting social welfare benefits, while recognizing challenges facing locals such as inflation.
Significantly, as The Bump points out, this initiative is just the cherry on the cake in a series of steps that the city has taken toward universal childcare. Formally, kids aged three to five were covered, while families with a second child benefited from free childcare for kids under two. This new policy expands these benefits to cover all children.
Tokyo’s sheer size makes this generous policy a milestone. BBC Science Focus reveals that the megacity of Tokyo is the largest city in the world. Moreover, with a population density of 2,642 persons per square kilometre (0.4 square miles), it is also one of the most densely populated cities on Earth.
According to Japanese media, the VNExpress shares, this is the first initiative of its kind at a regional level in Japan.
A policy accompanied by several family- and economy-friendly solutions
In addition, the city of Tokyo has been rolling out other family-supportive policies aimed at empowering more parents to rejoin the workforce, strengthening businesses, and boosting the economy.
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These positive policies include the option for city employees to work a four-day week from this year, and a “childcare parental leave” policy enabling some workers to trim their workdays by two hours a day.
All of these initiatives are important because, as the Japan Times notes, the country has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco, while the country’s strict immigration policies mean that it faces increasing labor shortages.
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