About one in five mothers quit their jobs after a child stops going to school, a survey by the NPO Key Design found, and companies are beginning to offer their own leave systems to keep those parents employed.
A woman in her 40s living in the Kanto region watched her son start refusing school seven years ago, in the fourth grade. Every morning she coaxed and pleaded with the trembling boy and rode with him to school.
Even when he reached a classroom, he would say he felt sick and leave early. Soon whole days passed with him unable to step inside.
She worked for a company in Tokyo at the time. She could not leave the house for work while her son, alone at home, spoke of his fear of being by himself.
After getting by on paid leave and shorter hours, she took six months off. The boy still did not return to school when the leave ended.
“With no prospect of him ever going back to school, the feeling that I was causing trouble kept growing. I felt so sorry about it that I thought I could not stay at the company any longer.”she said, mother who left her job
She resigned.
According to a survey by the education ministry, 353,970 elementary and junior high school students were refusing to attend school in fiscal 2024. The figure rose for a 12th straight year and is the highest on record.
The pattern of parents leaving work over a child's school refusal has drawn attention in recent years as futoko rishoku, or school-refusal resignation.
The government is spreading word that parents may be able to use the nursing care leave system, depending on the child's condition.
A journalist's view
Shiko Ishii, a journalist who has reported on school refusal, said the stories go back to when she began covering the issue 25 years ago. She said she felt the problem had turned serious 10 years ago.
School refusal has been starting at younger ages year by year, she said, with first and second graders now standing out.
“When a single parent has a child in the lower grades who stops going to school, work is out of the question, and they can no longer support the household. The situation was severe.”Ishii said, school-refusal journalist
Companies write their own rules
Kyodo Printing introduced its Life Support Leave System in January 2023. It allows up to two years off and up to three years of shorter hours for reasons including a child's school refusal or fertility treatment.
Tomoki Miura, a manager in the group's human resources division, said the trigger was an employee then handling work-life balance support who heard from a parent struggling with a child's school refusal.
The company already let employees work shorter hours from pregnancy until a child finished third grade. That cutoff could not cover school refusal, which is common from the upper elementary grades through junior high, he said.
So the company decided to drop the third-grade limit and frame the support as next-generation development up to adulthood.
A survey of about 170 employees raising children found 16 had experienced a child's school refusal. Another 36 were worried it could happen. The company shared the view that addressing school refusal mattered both for diversity and for preventing resignations.
Three employees have used the system so far. Rather than taking leave at once, they can start with shorter hours or adjust their duties, Miura said.
“Users tell us they were able to make time for themselves and their children, and that they were glad they used it.”Miura said, Kyodo Printing human resources manager
Other companies have asked about the system. The most common questions concern paperwork, Miura said, such as what documents to require when a school-refusal case arises. Whether leave is paid or unpaid comes next.
Sumitomo Forestry set up a Family Care Leave System in January. It covers employees living with a child who refuses school, withdraws at home or has a developmental disability, or with a spouse or minor child needing daily care after injury, illness or disability.
Leave can be taken in installments totaling three years regardless of how many family members need care. Shorter hours, a three-day week and exemption from prescribed overtime are available for another three years in total.
The company had already set up a work-style support office handling child care, nursing care, career support, health care and reemployment after retirement age.
“The trigger was the presence of an employee worried about a child's school refusal.”Naoko Ushiki said, group manager at Sumitomo Forestry's work-style support office
Nearly a year after the system started, no one has used it for school refusal. Ushiki said building an environment where people feel able to speak up matters, and that losing staff a company has trained is a serious loss.
Leave under both companies' systems is unpaid. Kyodo Printing does not demand strict certificates. It calls the system a safety net for employees who cannot keep working, and says decisions follow a no-work, no-pay principle out of fairness to other staff.
Sumitomo Forestry takes the same view. It notes the leave is unpaid without the social insurance benefits that come with statutory child care and nursing care leave. It therefore emphasizes flexibility: taking leave in short stretches as needed, and using shorter hours to stay in work.