Nursery Schools All Full in Japan - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Number of children on the waiting list for admission to nursery schools increased this year for the first time in five years — Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry

• 19,550 children on waiting lists for preschool facilities, 64 per cent of them under age 3

• Experts attribute the increase to rise in the number of women taking maternity leave and then resuming work, rather than simply exiting the labor force. 89.7 per cent of pregnant working women took child care leave in the year that ended last April, an increase of 17.4 percentage points from two years ago

• Some local governments are offering subsidies to nursery operators or requiring that homebuilders also erect preschool facilities, while others are implementing reservation systems

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