Child daycare policy in Japan: an examination of the program and its impacts

Abstract

Recent reforms with regard to Japan's child daycare policies have moved in the direction of deregulation, increased privatization and private/public partnerships. These reforms have substantially increased the availability of diversity of child daycare services. However, initiatives creating diversity have introduced issues of lack of equal access to highly desired services as, with privatization, higher quality services may cost more. Also, in municipally-provided care, parents are paying a greater proportion of the cost of childcare. These factors create a situation where poorer parents may not be able to afford the best care. The dominant Liberal Democratic Party has been reluctant to substantially increase national expenditures for child daycare and other supportive family policies. While it has provided initiatives that have eased the predicament of some working women, it has not resolved the cultural issue of utilizing women in a secondary role in employment and emphasizing the mother's responsibility (increasingly a working mother) as a caregiver of young children. As a result, family size remains substantially below the measure of population replacement.