With the four-day workweek, the goal is to make everyday life easier and, above all, shorter for employees. However, in Japan, that is not enough. Here, employees are now offered the opportunity to shorten their working hours by an additional 2 hours per day.
Following the opening to immigrants, raising the retirement age, and providing financial support for families for every child born, Japan wants to create another incentive for the population: the four-day workweek and the elimination of two hours of work per day.
However, many previous incentives for better working hours and more children have so far done little to solve Japan’s major problems.
Less work, more time for childcare
What kind of model is this? The Tokyo city government, one of the largest employers in Japan, wants to change its working hours: On the one hand, there will be a permanent four-day workweek, and on the other hand, employees will be allowed to work 2 hours less per day if they need that time for childcare. The administration views this as partial childcare leave.
As in this country, a daily working time of 8 hours is planned in Japan (via Betriebsrat.de). However, there is a high social pressure to work more. Some workers therefore even voluntarily forgo the four-day workweek.
According to the Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, they will continue to analyze what other possibilities exist to make working hours more flexible and “ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events such as childbirth or raising children”. This is reported by the magazine 3Djuegos.com.
Japan’s population is aging and the government is trying to create incentives
Why is this happening in Japan? Japan, like many large industrial countries, faces the problem of a rapidly aging population. After the strong baby boomer generation shortly after World War II, birth rates have significantly dropped in many industrialized countries, including Japan. And Japan is particularly feeling the effects of these problems:
Recently, Deutschlandfunk reported that Japan’s birth rate has fallen for the ninth consecutive year: There are now 2 deceased persons per newborn. The Japanese government in Tokyo has been trying to counteract this for years, but no program has been really successful so far, the site reports.
Globally, there is a discussion about a four-day workweek. A study now shows that many people already work only 4 days a week, even though they are officially supposed to work 5 days a week. This is mainly due to the declining productivity throughout the week: A study shows that many employees have secretly introduced a four-day workweek, even though they were supposed to work five days.
