Tokyo to offer free daycare for firstborns starting September 2025
Japan's capital, Tokyo, is set to provide free daycare services for firstborn children starting in 2025, aiming to ease the financial burden on parents.
According to Japanese news outlet Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike announced that the offer will begin in September 2025. This is to help lessen the financial troubles of families raising children.
The metropolitan government will compensate for the full cost of privately operated services, while it will split the cost in half with municipal governments for public daycare centers.
Koike assured the public that they will "further promote efforts to tackle the declining birth rate, without cutting corners, since there is not a moment to lose."
The initiative, which is a first of its kind, comes after Japan has been slowly establishing policies that waive the fees parents pay for their children's daycare.
They previously allowed free service in 2019 for children aged 3 to 5 and infants aged 0 to 2 that meet certain criteria such as those from households exempt from resident taxes. In 2023, this benefit was extended to include second-born and subsequent children up to the age of 2.
Japan has been experiencing a declining birth rate in recent years, prompting the country's lawmakers to look for solutions to counter the population crisis.
In July, the government surveyed young people to understand their views on marriage and family planning. The Children and Families Agency cited a survey that found that of single people aged 25 to 34 years old, 43.3% of men and 48.1% said they had no opportunity to meet potential partners in 2021.
The decline in marriage, then, has been cited as a significant reason for the low birthrate and dwindling, aging population. Other surveys showed that many young Japanese don't want to marry or have families because of worries about the high cost of living in big cities and the lack of good jobs.
