Working women thinking carefully about their "delivery month"

A growing number of working women are thinking carefully about the month in which to give birth. They have a variety of preferences: some choose early spring, since that is the time for enrolling their children in day care facilities, while others opt for summer to reduce the burden placed on the people around them.

Their reasons are equally varied. Some take their childcare leave period into account, while others think about facilitating their return to the workplace, or complain that they cannot enroll their children in day care facilities, even if they apply for mid-term enrollment, because of the long waiting list to get into such facilities.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Vital Statistics of Population, which shows the proportion of children by their birth month, infants under 12 months of age who were born in April accounted for 8.0% in 1982, while the share rose to 8.3% in 2002. Similarly, the share of infants born in May rose from 8.2% to 8.4 %, and those born in March rose from 7.8% to 8.1%, showing an increase in spring-born babies. Overall, however, the largest numbers of babies were born in July and August, although growth in this share has stagnated in 2002 compared with 1982. These trends are becoming especially pronounced in large urban areas that have a large number of children on waiting lists for day care facilities.

The Mothering and Family Nursing Institute, an organization that supports working women, points out that working women's thinking about which month to deliver their children is in a sense a self-defense measure, and called on child care facilities to try and accommodate children throughout the year. This seems to indicate that conditions enabling women to continue working have yet to be fully established.

(Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January)