Analysis of work- Child care balance of male workers in Japan and their desires to take child care leave

1. Purpose of This Paper In this paper, I will analyze the current status of programs for supporting employees balance work and child care (work and child care balance support programs) in workplaces, focusing mainly on the male employees who need to care for their children, and based on this analysis, I will analyze the desires of the male employees, who are in potential need to take child care leave (or are assumed to have a child in the future), to take child care leave. In Japan, there are almost no male child care leave takers and therefore it is impossible to analyze the male child care leave takers. The purpose of this paper is, instead, to explore the factors that encourage male employees to take child care leave and to participate in child care utilizing the work and child care balance support system.