Can Japan’s Four-Day Work Week Solve Its Birth Rate Crisis? [Video]

While the Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to introduce a four-day workweek to ease the burden on families, some analysts believe it will have little impact on declining births unless accompanied by fundamental changes to Japanese workplace culture.

“For these policies to meaningfully impact fertility rates and support greater gender equality in Japan, they must be accompanied by workplace cultural changes that normalize and encourage men’s active participation in family life,” Ekaterina Hertog, associate professor at the Oxford Internet Institute and Institute for Ethics in AI, told Newsweek.

“Such a change will not happen on its own and will likely require regulation aimed directly at labor market practices.”

Last week, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike announcedthat, starting in April, city employees will be allowed to take three …