Japan Govt Adopts Bill for Allowing Flexible Nursery Use

February 6, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government adopted Tuesday a bill to revise the child care support law for implementing new measures aimed at reducing the number of children on nursery waiting lists, including by facilitating flexible use of nurseries beyond municipal boundaries.

The government aims to have the bill enacted during the ongoing parliamentary session and have the revised law come into force on April 1.

Currently, in principle, applications for entering nursery schools meeting state requirements need to be filed with municipalities where the applicants live.

If children can be accepted flexibly to such nurseries with vacancies beyond the boundaries of municipalities, parents will have a wider choice of places where they can leave their children, including those located on their way to work.

The revised law will stipulate that prefectural governments can arrange consultative meetings for allowing municipalities to make adjustments of nursery school applicants on a regional scale.

Municipality and nursery school officials will participate in such meetings, where prefectural government officials will play coordinating roles with the aim of reducing the number of children on nursery waiting lists.

Officials of the welfare ministry and other related government agencies will also join the meetings as necessary.

Under the revised law, the legal upper limit of the burden shouldered by companies as funds for implementing measures to shorten nursery waiting lists will gradually rise to 0.45 pct of workers' pay from the current 0.25 pct.

In fiscal 2018, which will start in April, the burden ratio will be lifted to 0.29 pct, a hike that will allow the government to secure additional funds of some 100 billion yen. Jiji Press