Japan’s youngest elected feminine mayor is making historical past once more – by taking time without work to develop into a first-time mother.
Shoko Kawata, the 35-year-old mayor of Yawata metropolis in Kyoto Prefecture, has introduced she’ll be taking maternity depart across the coming start of her little one, placing herself on the forefront of a nationwide debate and exposing a evident hole in Japan’s traditionally patriarchal labor and political programs.
Kawata, who was elected in 2023, is because of give start in mid-September and can take 16 weeks of maternity depart – eight weeks earlier than and eight weeks after childbirth – in what’s believed to be a primary for an incumbent mayor in Japan.
Whereas maternity depart is obtainable to public staff, there is no such thing as a authorized framework guaranteeing depart for elected officers.
Kawata stated she hopes her breakthrough can develop into a “catalyst for altering the system” as Japan grapples with a quickly declining start charge and chronic gender gaps in political management. The nation elected its first female prime minister simply final yr, and girls at present make up lower than 15% of the Home of Representatives, in keeping with IPU Parline, which tracks world knowledge on nationwide parliaments.
“By way of this, I hope to encourage not solely staff, but in addition enterprise house owners and managers, all these concerned in numerous kinds of work to embrace these life occasions, child-rearing and childbirth … whereas placing a correct steadiness with their work,” Kawata advised CNN.
Kawata plans to nominate a deputy to fill in throughout her absence main town of practically 70,000 folks, which sits about 285 miles southwest from Tokyo. She nonetheless plans to verify her emails usually whereas caring for her new child at house.
Criticism over Kawata’s deliberate maternity depart bubbled up on Japanese social media after she introduced it, with some arguing a public official’s absence from the office is a waste of taxpayers’ cash. However Kawata stated these she’s spoken to in particular person have been “extremely understanding.”
“In actual fact, they’ve been telling me to go forward and take it. The employees on the authorities workplace, in addition to members of the general public, have been telling me with out hesitation that I ought to simply take a break,” she stated.
Lots of Japan’s attitudes in direction of authorities are based mostly on “very old school assumptions” that don’t maintain tempo with the wants of modern-day girls within the workforce, in keeping with Sawako Shirahase, a sociology professor at College of Tokyo.
“The authorized framework itself doesn’t assume that mayors or the pinnacle of the general public workplace would take maternity depart,” she advised CNN. “However on the identical time, nobody can prohibit (somebody) from taking the depart … so it’s fairly a grey zone.”
Shirahase stated she hoped future leaders of Japan can look to Kawata to foster a tradition of higher work-life steadiness each within the personal and public sector.
Stefanie Schwarte, a researcher on the Japan Heart of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität stated that whereas Japan has been sluggish to alter when it comes to gender equality, extra girls are breaking conventional norms in politics.
Previously 5 years, the variety of feminine mayors grew from round 50 to nearly 80 out of over 1,700 municipalities as of early 2026, stated Schwarte, citing knowledge on feminine participation in native governance.
“We are able to additionally see increasingly more feminine mayors who keep on for a second, third, fourth time period,” she stated, including they’re an instance to the following era that anybody – man or girl – can serve their communities and do a very good job.
The controversy over the Yawata mayor’s maternity depart additionally comes within the context of the Japanese authorities’s decadeslong battle in opposition to declining start charges. The nation logged 671,236 births of Japanese nationals in 2025, a brand new report low marking the tenth straight yr of decline.
Efforts to extend births have accelerated lately because the full scale of the population crisis has develop into clearer, with new insurance policies starting from childbirth and housing subsidies to encouraging more fathers to take paternity leave.
However many consultants have attributed Japan’s plunging start charges to its deeply-ingrained overwork culture alongside the rising value of residing. Many younger folks of childbearing age could select to deal with their careers fairly than beginning a household, as staff throughout numerous sectors report punishing hours, excessive stress from supervisors, and, in excessive instances, “karoshi” – a time period which means “loss of life by overwork” used round instances of deadly work-induced coronary heart and mind circumstances.
Kawata advised CNN change stays sluggish as Japanese workplaces and authorities programs are nonetheless ill-suited to the wants of ladies contemplating childbirth and motherhood.
The nation’s gender hole within the office is barely greater than different high-income nations, with about 56% of ladies taking part within the labor pressure, in comparison with about 72% of males, in keeping with the World Financial institution.
“In the event that they need to have a child, they’ve to surrender their profession, or in the event that they need to pursue a profession, they’ve to surrender having a child,” Kawata stated, arguing girls shouldn’t be compelled into an “either-or alternative.”
“We at the moment are working to enhance this example little by little, and I imagine we’re transferring towards the design of programs geared toward reaching correct gender equality.”
