Lead
You want to take parental leave. You're not sure how to raise it at work. The atmosphere in the office is hard to read. You worry about the effect on colleagues. And underneath all of that, a more basic question: does taking leave actually make a difference — to your child, to your family — in ways the research can confirm?
Japan's parental leave system is, on paper, among the longest available anywhere in the world. Actual take-up rates, however, have long lagged far behind what the law makes possible — especially for fathers. This article reviews how parental leave compares internationally and what research has established about its effects on families.