Tokyo will have 4-day work week to tackle population decline

This week the government of the metropolis Tokyo, capital of Japan, announced that it will test the four-day work week as a way to face a scenario of demographic crisis. The measure will be implemented as a test from April next year for public employees.

With the initiative, Governor Yuriko Koike intends to create a positive environment in the capital with the intention of reversing the current scenario of falling birth rates coupled with the aging of the population. At this point, the reduction of working hours without decreasing wages begins to be considered beyond the already known results, demonstrating the pioneering spirit of the Japanese in testing the model with a view to other benefits.

In places where it has already been tested, the four-day work week presented challenges and numerous benefits for workers and, consequently, for companies. While people gain in well-being and more free time for particular tasks, the businesses they work in obtain gains in productivity and start to have a more harmonious routine with fewer absences and more committed workers – which brings better returns with greater predictability of results.

Read more: 4-day work week reveals fewer absences and more benefits

But the Japanese intend to go beyond these better-known conclusions and check whether the model can help with actions that change the structure of society.

This is because the country has one of the largest elderly populations in the world. Government data indicates that 1 in 10 people in the country are over 80 years old, with 36.25 million being 65 years old or over, which represents 29.3% of the population of 124.3 million.

This situation represents a major challenge, since the aging population already generates problems regarding the workforce and the social security system. The condition has accentuated the culture of working until exhaustion among the Japanese and made them perform functions even at an advanced age.

To complete the complex challenge, Japan faces a declining population for the 15th consecutive year with birth rates falling. In 2023, the country registered only 758.6 thousand births, a reduction of 5.1% compared to the previous year and the negative record since the data was compiled. This was the 8th consecutive year of decline in this index.

To top it off, the fertility rate (number of children a woman will have throughout her reproductive life) is falling: 1.2 in the country and 0.99 in Tokyo. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the value needs to be 2.1 to have a stable population.

4 day work week

The debate about reducing working hours is international. Initiatives tested and approved the model in Brazil and other countries. Here, the debate has gained the spotlight with the debate about the end of the 6×1 scale. Even if it is distant to think about the four-day working week (4×3) spread throughout the country, current discussions can cause society to mobilize the National Congress to reduce, at least, the current 44-hour working day governed by the CLT to 40 hours a week – a historic struggle for the trade union movement.

And why not think about reducing it even further? As the governor of Tokyo indicates, the initiative aims not only at the already known benefits, but also has the potential to empower women.

In the Japanese capital, according to the IMF, women dedicate five times more time to family domestic work than men. The ‘4 Day Week’ initiative indicates that in tests carried out with an extra day of rest, men increased their time spent caring for their children by 22%.

Thinking in this sense, Yuriko Koike wants motherhood and domestic care not to mean that women put their careers aside. Therefore, with more free time it is easier to balance domestic routines and share care tasks with partners.

Thus, to complete the actions intended to stimulate birth rates, the government will also create specific licenses to expand child care, increase the number of places in daycare centers and even consider subsidy measures and financing for egg freezing.

Read more: With a “4-day week”, Portugal signals a reduction in working hours

The actions are in addition to other incentive policies already adopted in the country, such as parental leave that can last up to 14 months, subsidies for daycare centers and even a cash bonus for each baby born.

In this way, the reduction in working hours, along with other initiatives, aims to create an environment that reduces gender inequalities while increasing the birth rate among the Japanese.

*With information from Fortune, Reuters and international agencies