As parental leave expands, single employees shoulder more work in Japan

Japan’s expanding support for parental leave and family caregiving is exposing a new workplace fault line: single employees say they are increasingly expected to absorb the gaps.

Complaints center on transfers, overtime and other duties. When companies try to accommodate employees with families, unmarried workers may be more likely to move to another location. A survey by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training found that 60.5% of companies with female transferees said most of those employees were single.

The burden also appears in day-to-day workloads. A Persol Research and Consulting survey found that employees who covered for colleagues taking family-care leave worked an average of 14.1 hours of overtime per month. That was 5.6 hours more than employees who did not take on such work.

Some 42.6% of respondents said they were dissatisfied about taking over colleagues’ duties, while 69.2% said their companies did not provide enough support. The tensions reflect rapidly changing family structures in Japan, the report said, citing data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.