A Japanese mayor is making history — by taking maternity leave

Shoko Kawata, Japan's youngest female city mayor at the age of 35, plans to take maternity leave this summer. (The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Japan’s youngest elected female mayor is making history again – by taking time off to become a first-time mom.

Shoko Kawata, the 35-year-old mayor of Yawata city in Kyoto Prefecture, has announced she’ll be taking maternity leave around the coming birth of her child, putting herself at the forefront of a national debate and exposing a glaring gap in Japan’s historically patriarchal labour and political systems.

Kawata, who was elected in 2023, is due to give birth in mid-September and will take 16 weeks of maternity leave – eight weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth – in what’s believed to be a first for an incumbent mayor in Japan.

While maternity leave is available to public employees, there is no legal framework guaranteeing leave for elected officials.

Kawata said she hopes her breakthrough can become a “catalyst for changing the system” as Japan grapples with a rapidly declining birth rate and persistent gender gaps in political leadership. The country elected its first female prime minister just last year, and women currently make up less than 15 per cent of the House of Representatives, according to IPU Parline, which tracks global data on national parliaments.

“Through this, I hope to encourage not only workers, but also business owners and managers, all those involved in various types of work to embrace these life events, child-rearing and childbirth … while striking a proper balance with their work,” Kawata told CNN.

Kawata plans to appoint a deputy to fill in during her absence leading the city of nearly 70,000 people, which sits about 285 miles southwest from Tokyo. She still plans to check her emails regularly while taking care of her newborn at home.

Criticism over Kawata’s planned maternity leave bubbled up on Japanese social media after she announced it, with some arguing a public official’s absence from the workplace is a waste of taxpayers’ money. But Kawata said those she’s spoken to in person have been “incredibly understanding.”

“In fact, they’ve been telling me to go ahead and take it. The staff at the government office, as well as members of the public, have been telling me without hesitation that I should just take a break,” she said.

Slow to change

Many of Japan’s attitudes towards government are based on “very old-fashioned assumptions” that do not keep pace with the needs of modern-day women in the workforce, according to Sawako Shirahase, a sociology professor at University of Tokyo.

“The legal framework itself doesn’t assume that mayors or the head of the public office would take maternity leave,” she told CNN. “But at the same time, no one can prohibit (someone) from taking the leave … so it’s quite a gray zone.”

Shirahase said she hoped future leaders of Japan can look to Kawata to foster a culture of better work-life balance both in the private and public sector.

Stefanie Schwarte, a researcher at the Japan Center of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität said that while Japan has been slow to change in terms of gender equality, more women are breaking traditional norms in politics.

In the past five years, the number of female mayors grew from around 50 to almost 80 out of over 1,700 municipalities as of early 2026, said Schwarte, citing data on female participation in local governance.

“We can also see more and more female mayors who stay on for a second, third, fourth term,” she said, adding they are an example to the next generation that anyone – man or woman – can serve their communities and do a good job.

The debate over the Yawata mayor’s maternity leave also comes in the context of the Japanese government’s decadeslong fight against declining birth rates. The country logged 671,236 births of Japanese nationals in 2025, a new record low marking the 10th straight year of decline.

Efforts to increase births have accelerated in recent years as the full scale of the population crisis has become clearer, with new policies ranging from childbirth and housing subsidies to encouraging more fathers to take paternity leave.

But many experts have attributed Japan’s plunging birth rates to its deeply-ingrained overwork culture alongside the rising cost of living. Many young people of childbearing age may choose to focus on their careers rather than starting a family, as employees across various sectors report punishing hours, high pressure from supervisors, and, in extreme cases, “karoshi” – a term meaning “death by overwork” used around cases of fatal work-induced heart and brain conditions.

Kawata told CNN change remains slow as Japanese workplaces and government systems are still ill-suited to the needs of women considering childbirth and motherhood.

The country’s gender gap in the workplace is slightly higher than other high-income nations, with about 56 per cent of women participating in the labour force, compared to about 72 per cent of men, according to the World Bank.

“If they want to have a baby, they have to give up their career, or if they want to pursue a career, they have to give up having a baby,” Kawata said, arguing women shouldn’t be forced into an “either-or choice.”

“We are now working to improve this situation little by little, and I believe we are moving toward the design of systems aimed at achieving proper gender equality.”

By Yumi Asada, Kathleen Magramo, CNN