◆Almost 90% of women say that they also “want to work after getting married and having children.”
For women, major life events such as marriage and childbirth can often impact career plans. With pregnancy and childbirth comes a period of time spent away from the company on maternity leave and childcare leave. Women’s career consciousness after this period varies with the different circumstances women find themselves in.
Career Consciousness After Marriage and Childbirth is a questionnaire that was conducted by a research institute targeting career women (aged 27–33) working in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
In response to the question: “How do you feel about work after getting married and having children?”
86.7% responded: “I also want to work after getting married and having children.”
This result was significantly higher than the 8.5% who responded: “I would like to be a full-time housewife without working anymore.”
◆Greater than 50% responded: “While I don’t mind becoming a full-time housewife, I do want to work again”
The breakdowns of the response: “I also want to work after getting married and having children” were as follows:
33.0% responded “I want to work continuously, without a break in my career”
while 53.7% responded “While I don’t mind becoming a full-time housewife (unemployed) temporarily, I do want to work again.”
This result demonstrates that the group of respondents that does not mind temporary career interruptions is still the largest.
The above demonstrates the current situation: both the desire to want to spend time bringing children up properly and the ongoing lack of support systems for balancing work and family care.
This can also be understood from responses to a question in the same survey about how much childcare leave is desired after childbirth. Almost half (46.3%) responded that they would like “more than a year, up to three years,” which is on the long side.
◆The desire for workplaces where one can both work and raise children
While small- and medium-scale enterprises may find it difficult to respond due to issues including personnel arrangement, in the context of women’s progress in also playing an active role in society, work environments where women are forced to choose between continuing their careers or bringing up children may find themselves facing even more serious problems in terms of manpower shortages.
We have to think about how to respond to this issue in the future with a focus on what can actually be done.
