Anger at Japanese mayor’s maternity leave

Tuesday, 21 July 2026

Japan

You would think the people of Yawata would be glad of another baby around the place. Like the rest of Japan, the town is experiencing a drastic decline in its population, with silent parks and empty playgrounds, as young people marry less and have fewer children.

But when Shoko Kawata said she was expecting and would take four months of maternity leave, it caused upset.

At 35, Kawata is Japan's youngest female mayor, and one of only a small number of women elected to such a position. Japan has well-established statutory maternity leave for workers in private companies and government departments but to many people, it was unthinkable that an elected official would be absent for even a few weeks.

“I feel a strong sense of discomfort at a public official taking such a long period of leave,” said Toshio Tamogami, a retired general. “While serving in public office, people should make arrangements so that they do not need to take such lengthy leave. If it can be foreseen that someone will require a long absence, I do not think they should stand for election as mayor or similar office.” He clarified that by urging her to “make arrangements”, he was not actually recommending an abortion.

Kawata's office received 70 emails and phone calls denouncing her decision, compared with 90 expressions of support. “I was surprised to know that there were so many voices against,” she said. “Gender equality has been recognised for a good while in this society. But unfortunately, there are a number of people who have that attitude.”

Women in Japan are active in all areas of public life and business and last October, it elected its first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. But the World Economic Forum's report last year on gender equality ranked Japan 118th out of 148 countries, and women make up less than 15% of Japan's Diet, compared with 41% in Britain's House of Commons. Statutory parental leave is established - the civil servants who work for Kawata can have two months off before birth and two after. But for elected officials there are no specified entitlements and in many areas of employment, people are reluctant to claim their due because of a lingering sense that it is selfish or lazy.

It is this sense that Tamogami and the rest are articulating. It was expressed in a different way by Takaichi, who is an ambiguous role model for women. Immediately after being appointed leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last year, thus ensuring her election as prime minister, she promised to make her party colleagues “work like horses”.

“I will work, work, work, work and work,” said Takaichi, who has spoken of her inability to have children after surgery. “I have given up the idea of a work-life balance.”

Such an ethos does nothing to address the growing number of young women who, facing what feels like a choice between motherhood and a career, give up on the idea of children.

“She may be physically a woman, but she works harder than any man,” says Kawata, who supports the LDP. “You wonder whether many other women can work in the way she does. I don't think many of them can. And if women have to work that hard, and don't have enough children, then that will affect the sustainability of society.”

The effect is obvious in Yawata, a town of about 68,000 people southwest of the large city of Kyoto. In 1995, its population was 76,000; that is about a 10% loss in three decades, and a faster decline than Japan as a whole.

“Society says it needs more children, yet childbirth is still treated as an individual responsibility,” Kawata has said. “It welcomes children, but not childbirth itself.”

The controversy has had no effect on Kawata's plans and she will begin her maternity leave in a few days. The deputy mayor, a 62-year-old man, will take over duties temporarily, and she will take part in online meetings.

Kawata declined to say what her husband did for a living but confirmed that he worked full-time and would take six months off. She expects to give birth in September to a daughter.

“One day I'll tell her that when her mum took maternity leave, it was huge news,” she said. “By that time, we'll just have a laugh about it.”