National Institute of Population and Social Security Research

Foreign Scholar Lecture Series

National Institute of Population and Social Security Research organizes following lecture in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan.



Title: "Family Policy in International Perspective"

Lecturer: Willem Adema (Senior Economist for the Social Policy Division, OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour & Social Affairs)

Date and time: 10:30 - 11:30, March 19 (Tue.), 2019

Place: Conference Room No.22 on the 18th floor of the No. 5 Central Government Joint Building (1-2-2 Kasumigaseki Chiyoda-ku Tokyo, 100-8916 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) Map





Abstract:


Family policy in Japan faces important challenges in view of the ongoing demographic transition. The important questions include: how can policy become more family-friendly and better support more parents in their quest to reconcile work and family commitments. How can family policy help address the barriers underlying the persistently low fertility rates; how are other OECD countries doing in terms of work/life balance policies; and what are best practices in terms of family policy measures such as parental leave or formal childcare policy that can inform the policy debate in Japan?

The presentation will first look at some cross-national differences in work/family outcomes, and look at the scope of public social and family expenditure, the underlying family policy objectives and how these may differ across OECD countries. The presentation will consider different factors that affect work/life balance on a cross-national basis, and how outcomes for men and women in face of the parental time-crunch vary across countries in terms of working hours, access to flexible workplace practices, and unpaid care work. The use of work/life balance supports such as parental leave, childcare and out-of-school hours care measures will also be considered.

Dr. Adema will make the case for more family-friendly policies and more gender equality in the labour market, as these have positive effects on family and child well-being and child development, fertility trends, future labour supply and economic growth.

Download Dr.Adema's presentation slides from here (PDF).

The profile of Dr.Adema is posted here (PDF).


Lecture 1 Lecture 2


*Presentation and discussion were given in English. (Japanese simultaneous translation was provided).





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