Japanese Mayor Sparks National Debate by Taking Maternity Leave
When the mayor of a small city in western Japan announced her plan to take maternity leave, she anticipated some debate. However, the reaction was far more intense than Shoko Kawata had ever imagined. The 35-year-old now finds herself at the centre of a national controversy over whether elected officials should take parental leave, in a country struggling to boost its birthrate. “I was very surprised that the reaction was so big,” Kawata told the BBC.
Speaking in the meeting room of Yawata City Hall, located south of Kyoto and famed for its Shinto shrine and cherry blossoms, Kawata sat flanked by two older male deputies. As there is no legal framework for elected officials to take maternity leave, she will not take official leave. Instead, she is delegating her duties to her deputy, Shinji Ishimaru, who will act as her proxy for four months. She announced the plan in May, stating she would take two months off before and two months after her mid-September due date. This makes her the first mayor in Japanese history to take maternity leave.
Within her office, where the average employee age is 39, she received full support. The public response, however, was sharply divided across thousands of posts on X and YouTube videos. Supporters argued that Kawata was setting an excellent example by prioritising family and paving the way for other women in politics, noting that society has failed to build a system friendly to pregnant women. Critics, however, called her decision “irresponsible,” with some arguing she should have had a child before taking office and others demanding her salary be cut during the leave.
Kawata dismissed the criticism, stating, “If we criticise politicians for taking maternity leave, we are effectively excluding all women in their 20s to 40s—women of childbearing age—from public office.” Her deputy, Shinji Ishimaru, the former mayor of Akitakata, commented on his YouTube channel that the core issue is ensuring governance runs smoothly during the leave. He expressed hope the case would spark constructive discussion on maintaining local government functions.
Kawata made history when she was elected at 33 as Japan’s youngest female mayor. A Kyoto University economics graduate, she entered the political elite in a country where, until last year, only about 4% of the 1,720 local government heads were women. A July 2025 Cabinet Office survey identified pregnancy, the stigma that politics is a man’s world, and harassment as key factors hindering women’s political participation. As the world’s fourth-largest economy, Japan consistently ranks poorly on gender gap indices, placing 118th out of 146 countries in the latest World Economic Forum report, the worst among G7 nations.