Infrastructural Family Policy in Japan: Parental Evaluation

Holthus, Barbara

doi:10.1007/978-3-658-26638-7_7

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In 2016, a blog post by a woman being denied daycare for her child made national news, in which she expressed her frustration by writing "Die, Japan" [27,28]. This brought into sharp light the irony of the government's ongoing yet unsuccessful efforts to raise the birthrate (currently far below the replacement rate at 1.42), repeatedly encouraging young Japanese to have more children, despite a background of increased irregular employment and lack of daycare to accommodate families with two working parents [29][30][31]. As noted above, one of the difficulties the government faced in expanding daycare is the often-vocal resistance against perceived noise issues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Threats to Young Children’s Green Space Access in Unlicensed Daycare Centers in Japan

Rupprecht

Cui

2020

IJERPH

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Access to green space (GS) is vital for children’s health and development, including during daycare. In Japan, deregulation to alleviate daycare shortages has created a new category of so-called unlicensed daycare centers (UDCs) that often lack dedicated GS. UDCs rely on surrounding GS, including parks, temples and university grounds, but reports of conflicts highlight the precarity of children’s well-being in a rapidly aging country. Knowledge about GS access in Japanese UDCs remains scarce. Our mail-back survey (n = 173) of UDCs and online survey (n = 3645) of parents investigated threats to GS access during daycare across 14 Japanese cities. Results suggest that UDCs use a variety of GS and aim to provide daily access. Caregivers are vital in mediating children’s access, but locally available GS diversity, quality and quantity as well as institutional support were perceived as lacking. Parents did not rank GS high among their priorities when selecting daycare providers, and showed limited awareness of conflicts during GS visits. Implications of this study include the need for caregivers and parents to communicate and collaborate to improve GS access, and the importance of strong public investment into holistically improving GS diversity, quality and quantity from the perspective of public health and urban planning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%