Maternity Benefits in Japan

I had two fairly long meetings today with my boss and the ladies from the finance department sorting out all the ins and outs of my upcoming maternity leave. I had no idea how much I didn't know.

Now, for the 7 or so dedicated readers out there (eg friends and family that haven't given up on me) this is going to be a long, dull post. The general summary I have explained before is basically still true.

This post however, is meant for any other expats here in Japan who just found out they're pregnant and want to know what to expect in terms of maternity leave. I'm going to get into a lot of the gritty details that really aren't that interesting unless you're planning your budget around them.

And here's what I found out...

First, its important to understand that maternity benefits are paid by insurance companies and the government - not the company / school you work for. I am also about to describe maternity leave for mothers working full time. I don't know what the system is if the mother is unemployed (thought I know there is some system in place for those mothers as well.)

6 weeks before the due date established by the hospital, mother's-to-be are eligible to begin their maternity leave. They can forfeit all or part of their leave if they have a doctor's note agreeing that they are healthy enough to continue working, but taking full leave seems to be pretty normal. Once leave starts, the employer no longer pays any sort of salary to the mother. Instead, insurance kicks in. The good news, is that insurance pays 80% (at least, mine does - I had originally heard 66%, so it may be variable depending on your insurance). The bad news is that you can't apply for that 6 weeks at 80% pay until the baby is born. After the birth, you fill out some paperwork and you get the 80% for however many days you were on leave (varying, of course, by when the baby decides to make his or her appearance). If your baby comes early - say after only 5 weeks of leave, you get 5 weeks at 80%, if he/she comes at 7 weeks, you get 7 weeks at 80%. Of course, that means a month and a half when you get no pay at all before you have a birth date to report. You get the money eventually, but you'd better hope you have a second income or some savings socked away to live on during your maternity leave.

So the baby arrives, you report the birth to the city (which involves taking the newborn in for visual confirmation) and you get a stamp in your mother/child book that confirms you do, indeed, have a baby. At this point you can apply for the pre-birth maternity leave, and your timer starts over for another 2 months at the same 80% rate. Since I had heard 66% pay, this was good news for me. However, the bad news is that, once again, you can't apply for the money until after the time has elapsed. So while you did just get paid for the 6 weeks prior to the birth, you have to live with no further pay for another two months. At which point you fill out more paperwork to apply for the post-birth 2 months of pay.

During this initial period of maternity leave, when you are still receiving the bulk of your pay, you are still accountable for your health insurance costs and your national pension costs. The way my university handled that, they figured out how much I would have to pay in insurance and pension for those months, and asked me to pay up front - before I start my leave. They will then pay this for me. I have a bit of sticker shock from the experience since I wasn't expecting it, but it does mean I'll have fatter checks when they do actually come through. Its a darn good thing I had some savings to raid.

As a side note, it was also pointed out that since the end of my post-birth 2 month stint comes right at the tail end of November, I am potentially very lucky. If the baby arrives before or on his due date, I only pay my pension and insurance through October. If, however, the baby takes his time and is a couple days late, causing the 2 month stint to end in December - even December 1st - we're going to have to pay one more month of pension and insurance. So here's hoping our kid has a better sense of timeliness than his dad or I do.

And that leads to the interesting stage after those post-birth 2 months end. At this point whoever is paying your maternity leave changes. The vague answer I got was that it changes from the insurance company to the government paying maternity leave. I'm not sure of the specifics. In any case, at this point things change a bit. The downside? Instead of getting 80% pay, you now drop to 50% of your original pay. This continues until the baby's first birthday unless you choose to go back to work. The silver lining? You don't have to pay insurance or pension during this period even though the mother and baby continue to be covered by insurance. In my particular case, Russell also happens to be covered by my insurance, and apparently he will stay covered as well - which was a big relief. I suppose the even shinier silver lining from my American readers' point of view, is that you get paid anything at all at this point.

In order to collect this 50% pay, however, you have to fill out forms every 2 months. Apparently the first time you apply (since it is a different system from the post-birth 2 month system) the payment takes a while to get to you, but after the start up phase the checks come more regularly. Though that also depends on you applying regularly every 2 months. So getting the money isn't a walk in the park, but at least there's a clear system. I assume it will actually feel more like getting a full paycheck every other month, rather than 50% pay. And it should be a healthy paycheck without insurance and pension taken out.

I also discovered that if you apply for childcare (presumably the city run system of child care?) and they don't have room for your child after his/her first birthday (not uncommon), you can apply for up to 6 months more of the 50% pay system. The only extra hurdle is having to prove every 2 months that you are on a waiting list for child care and there still isn't room. I don't plan on taking advantage of this - at least I hope I won't , but it is interesting.

I am not sure how I will go about paying (or if I need to pay) income tax on all of this. My status at work just recently changed, so for this year only, I had to pay city taxes individually (instead of having them taken out of my paycheck monthly by the university). I assume there must be some sort of national income tax as well, and I'm not sure how that will be paid. I need to check into that.

So that's how maternity leave works in Japan. As I've mentioned before, hospital costs are largely covered (if not completely covered) by a one time gift equalling around $4,000 that the city gives when the baby is born. That amount is in addition to the maternity leave described above.

I had not anticipated all the waiting to get maternity checks, but I'm not complaining. Just very glad we have some savings to fall back on...