Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is criticizing the government for suggesting that the government could help parents to acquire professional skills or an academic degree during child care leave.
Kishida said that we will give full support to people who are willing to get retraining during child care leave and other circumstances.
That reply came in response to a legislator of Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party who called for government aid to businesses that help retrain employees while they are on leave to care for their children.
The remark came only a few days after he pledged in the Diet unprecedented support for families raising children to reverse the alarming pace of the fallen birthrate.
Critics say that the prime minister's comments at an Upper House plenary session on January 27 showed how little he knows about what it takes to raise a child.
Akira Koike, secretary-general of the Japanese Communist Party, appeared appalled by Kishida's comments during a news show of the Japanese Broadcasting Corp. NHK on January 29.
Koike said something.
He said that child rearing in Japan turned into an enormous challenge because of the patriarchal system in Japan during the Meiji Era 1868 -- 1912 and that Kishida's comment showed that the concept of a male-dominated society has deep roots in the LDP.
Katsuya Shinba, secretary-general of the Democratic Party for the People, expressed dismay.
On the same TV program, he said I was disappointed to hear a parent receive retraining while on child care leave.
On social media, numerous posts blasted Kishida's suggestion to undertake retraining while raising a child.
The novelist Keiichiro Hirano said on his Twitter account. While taking care of a child, the prime minister should try to earn an academic degree. Yoshihisa Aono, the president of Cybozu Inc., noted in his social media post that taking care of a baby is more difficult than working a regular job.
The prime minister's comment was not surprising for a politician who did not do anything with regard to caring for children, he said.
Kaori Suetomi, Professor of Educational Administration at Nihon University, acknowledged that the prime minister's remark showed a lack of understanding of childbirth and what is involved in raising a child. She said that child care leave is not days off but an almost endless task requiring a mother to feed, change diapers and nurse to sleep and so on.
She said that retraining during child care leave is unrealistic for many people.
On January 30, Kishida was in damage control mode.
He told a session of the Lower House Budget Committee that he meant to underscore the importance of creating an environment that would support people regardless of their stage in life, who wish to retrain if they so desire to. The number of newborns is estimated to fall to less than 800,000 in 2022, eight years earlier than a projection by the government.
Japan has a chronically low birth rate, which is partly due to a surge in non-regular workers with fragile job security and the traditional role for women to raise children without much support from their husband, employer or society.