Percentage of Japanese fathers taking childcare leave doubles - to 2.6%

TOKYO. April 26. KAZINFORM The percentage of Japanese fathers who took childcare leave in fiscal 2011 doubled, but only to 2.63 percent, a rate still well below levels in other highly developed countries, government data showed Thursday.

The figure for the past year to March 31 was up 1.25 percentage points from a year earlier, and the highest since the government started compiling comparable data in 1996, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said , Kyodo reports.

Yet the rate still lags well behind that of other advanced nations, as the ratios in Britain and Germany exceed 10 percent -- and almost 90 percent in Norway. The Japanese government aims to boost it to 13 percent by 2020.

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