Japan's lower house passes child care aid bill to tackle falling births

Japan's lower house passed a bill Friday to expand monthly child allowances and parental leave in an effort to tackle the country's persistently declining birthrate.

The bill is expected to be enacted during the current Diet session through June following deliberations at the upper house. A new funding scheme will be set up with higher monthly health insurance premiums from fiscal 2026.

The legislation aims to expand child allowances to those aged between 16 and 18 and remove the income limit. The current monthly allowance for a third or subsequent child will be doubled to 30,000 yen.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to drastically enhance child-rearing support, with the number of babies born in 2023 falling to a record low in Japan's rapidly graying society.

Late marriage and financial worries are often cited as reasons behind the declining birthrate, and Kishida's government sees the period leading up to the 2030s as "the last chance" to reverse the trend.

Other features of the bill include providing parents taking child care leave with more benefits and expanding day care services to make children eligible regardless of their parents' employment status.

To implement the measures, the government plans to cut social security spending and create the fund to secure up to 3.6 trillion yen annually in the next three years.

The launch of the new "child support fund" is based on the view that the costs should be shared more broadly and fairly to address the common challenge of boosting the number of children.

The government aims to collect 600 billion yen at first and increase it to 1 trillion yen under the new funding scheme in fiscal 2028. The amount to be shouldered by individuals will vary depending on their income and public medical insurance.

The bill passed the House of Representatives with a majority led by members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito.

Opposition parties including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan opposed the bill, criticizing the creation of the new fund as being effectively a tax increase.

The number of births in Japan has continued to drop, with the figure falling to a record low of 758,631 in 2023, down 5.1 percent from the previous year, according to preliminary government data released in February.