A mayor in Japan announced her maternity leave
When the mayor of a small town in western Japan announced that she was taking maternity leave, she expected some eyebrows to be raised.
But the reaction was much stronger and more divided than Shoko Kawata expected.
The 35-year-old man is caught up in a national debate over whether elected officials should require leave to give birth in a country struggling to raise birth rates.
“I was very surprised because the response was so great,” Kawata told the BBC.
Sitting on a blocky, cushioned chair, flanked by two older men (his assistants), he sits in the meeting room on the fifth floor of the City Hall in Yawata, a town south of Kyoto known for its temples and cherry trees.
Kawata will not be officially taking maternity leave, as there is currently no legal framework for local elected officials to take leave when they have a baby. Instead, he assigns the man to his left, Shigeto Nose, to temporarily fulfill his duties.
Kawata said colleagues were supportive, but online reactions were divided [BBC]
He announced his plans at a press conference in May, saying he would take two months off before and two months after his due date in mid-September. She will make history as Japan’s first mayor to take maternity leave.
He says everyone is supportive at work, where the average age is 39.
But this was not the case among the public, who expressed differing opinions in thousands of X posts and various YouTube videos.
Some say having a baby is hard and Kawata is doing the best he can. One claim is that Japanese society has failed to design systems that take pregnancy into account.
Another says Kawata is setting a great example by putting her family first and making it easier for other women to enter politics.
But critics argue that stepping away from public duties is “irresponsible” and that if she wants to get pregnant “she should do it before taking office”. One says senior officials who want to take extended leave “should resign.” Others insist that salaries should be cut during maternity leave.
Kawata ignored the criticism, proudly stating that he enjoyed his job and that he believed it was time to have children and start a family.
“If we criticize politicians taking maternity leave, that means we are effectively excluding all women in their 20s to 40s – women with the potential to get pregnant – from public office.”
Shinji Ishimaru, former mayor of Akitakata city in Hiroshima prefecture, believes the real problem is figuring out how to make sure duties are carried out during maternity leave.
She says on her YouTube channel that people agree that maternity leave is good, but she wants this case to trigger a constructive discussion about finding a solution that doesn’t disrupt municipal business.
At the age of 33, Kawata became Japan’s youngest ever female mayor. He graduated from Kyoto University with a degree in economics before pursuing a career in local government and politics. According to her official profile page, she enjoys tea ceremonies, wearing kimonos, and visiting shrines and temples.
And she climbed the ladder in a very masculine political scene. As of last year, only 4% of Japan’s 1,720 municipal leaders were women.
Although the country now has its first female prime minister, the government regularly comes under fire for not doing enough to encourage more women into politics.
Some say the male-dominated cabinet and ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that has ruled Japan for much of its post-war history are part of the problem.
A Cabinet Office survey published in July 2025 identified several barriers preventing women from entering politics: pregnancy, the assumption that politics is a man’s job and harassment.
Although Japan is the world’s fourth largest economy, it consistently ranks low on the gender gap index. In the World Economic Forum’s latest report published in June 2025, Japan ranked 118th out of 146 countries. The worst performing G7 country when it comes to gender equality.
Kawata asked his assistant to replace him during his four-month leave [BBC]
Although there is legal maternity and paternity leave that guarantees leave and partial income compensation, not everyone uses this leave.
Women can take it six weeks before their due date and eight weeks after giving birth. Fathers can take up to four weeks of flexible paid leave within eight weeks of the child’s birth.
Both parents have the right to take child care leave until the child is one year old; During this period, eligible employees receive 67% of their wages for the first 180 days and 50% thereafter. Since April 2025, some parents can receive increased support for the first 28 days if both parents take leave.
“I think a lot of people are watching to see how situations like a woman giving birth while serving as mayor can be handled in practice,” says Deputy Mayor Shigeto Nose.
The 62-year-old father of two will exercise his full mayoral authority during Kawata’s absence and discuss important issues with him remotely once a week.
He never took parental leave himself and left almost all child care to his wife. “I was tired when I got home. Even though the baby was crying at night, I left it up to my husband. Looking back now, I feel like it was something I really had to think about.”
Now his son-in-law is taking six months off work to help his daughter care for her second child. “It makes me happy to see this. Times have really changed and it’s great to see them working together like this.”
Kawata says some of the criticism against him stems from the strong belief that those in certain positions, such as public office, must abandon their private lives and devote themselves fully to the public.
Asked what she would think about the attention paid to her future child’s pregnancy, she says: “I really hope they’ll be surprised.”
“I think we need to create a society where it’s very common for women to do both and not have to choose between working and having a family.”
