big business bosses are going back to school to take more consideration of their employees’ family lives

While the country still lives under a patriarchal model, associations believe that cooking classes or changing a crying baby represent the only way to change mentalities.

In Japan, the heads of large companies are returning to school this October, but it is not to take management or marketing courses. They spend hours trying to change a crying baby or cooking soup. Associations believe that this is the only way to change mentalities in the country and finally convince companies to offer working conditions more conducive to a balanced family life.

Organizers explain that Japanese companies still struggle to take into consideration the family lives of their employees. The country still lives under a fairly patriarchal conservative model: husbands at work, wives at home to manage the household. Even though women’s employment rate is high, they continue to do almost all of the household chores.
The latest study by the National Population Institute shows that they still take on 81% of the work at home. This is true of cleaning, cooking and especially taking care of the child(ren).

Japanese men are still reluctant to take parental leave. In 2023, only 30% of men employed in the private sector have taken days off to care for their baby. However, men can legally take up to two months of paid maternity leave after the arrival of their baby, but they do not do it, because it is always frowned upon in the company, by colleagues, by the boss . Hence the idea of ​​giving housework classes to these managers.

The Association of Business Managers of Kansai, the Osaka region, now regularly hosts these seminars with very high-level executives from large groups.
They are generally men over 50 years old. They spend, for example, hours with unhappy babies. They are not real babies, but dolls who cry if you let them go, if you rush them or if you stop cuddling them. They must learn patience, change a diaper, rock the infant. At the same time, they must also learn how to prepare a full dinner quickly. The idea is really to make them aware of the weight of all these household chores.

With these internships, managers are then supposed to encourage their young employees to find a better balance between their work and their family life. Part of the younger generation no longer supports the current model. Many young women are even hesitant about getting into a relationship or having babies. This is one of the reasons for the collapse in births in Japan.