Child support and other public allowances

Day Nurseries

Day nursery services are provided for children of preschool-age whose parents cannot take care of them at home during the day because they are working or because of illness.

Day nurseries are child welfare facilities operating in accordance with the Child Welfare Act and under the administration of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. There are both licensed and non-licensed day nurseries.

(1) Licensed nurseries

There are public day nurseries which are managed by the city, ward, town or village and private day nurseries managed by social welfare bodies licensed in accordance with the Social Welfare Act. Applications to enter day nurseries are accepted in most cities, wards, town and villages in early January for the next school year. However, if there are vacancies, it is possible to enter your child in a nursery at anytime. Applications can be made at the city, town or village office. Cities, wards, towns and villages have decided that day nursery fees are, in principle, calculated according to the guardian’s income for the previous fiscal year.

(2) Non-licensed nurseries

Non-licensed nurseries are those within a workplace, ‘baby hotels’, etc. These are not licensed in accordance with the Child Welfare Act. Nursery fees and entrance are decided between the management and the guardian.

Child Guidance Center (Jido Sodan Sho) (Naming may vary depending on the district)

The Child Guidance Center provides guidance and counseling on child-abuse, etc. children with mental and physical handicaps and general children’s problems.

The centers also provide counseling and guidance on reports, or notification of cases from Welfare Offices (naming may vary depending on the district) or relevant bodies and their officers will go to meet guardians directly or offer counseling over the telephone.

Mother and child support facilities (Boshi seikatsu shien shisetsu)

Mother and child support facilities accept mothers with children under 18 years of age who for various reasons cannot properly care for their children. These are child welfare facilities.

Midwifery facilities (Josan shisetsu)

There are designated facilities available for pregnant women who find it difficult to pay the costs involved in childbirth. In principle, the applicant must be from a family whose annual income for the year in question is tax-exempt.

Children’s allowance (Jido teate)

Financial support is available for families brining up pre-school children.

Child support allowance (Jido fuyo teate)

Allowances are available to mothers or their substitute who supervise and are guardians of children under 18 years old who have lost their father through death or divorce or whose father is severely mentally or physically handicapped (if the child has a medium-level or higher physical or mental handicap, the child’s age limit is under 20 years old). There are income conditions.

Special child support allowance (Tokubestu jido fuyo teate)

Allowances are available to the mother or father or their substitute who cares for children under 20 years old who has a medium-level or higher physical or mental handicap. There are conditions attached related to income. Note 1 Depending on the city, town or village, the application office, application procedures, the kinds of service available and the naming of these services may vary.

For details, ask a person who understands Japanese to enquire for you at your city, town or village office or welfare office.

Note 2 The information given is that confirmed as of July 2002. Note that a new system or system revisions may have been introduced after this date.

A non-Japanese single mother in Tokyo writes the following:

This is not so easy to answer in great detail because some benefits come from the National government (administered through your local city hall), some come from the prefectural government (administered through your local city hall) and some come from your local municipality.

In addition, some benefits are available to everyone with a visa other than a "temporary visitor's visa", so in other words anyone with a working visa.  Then there are some benefits only available to citizens and those with Permanent residence.

You'd be amazed at how much is available to "non-permanent" residents!

I speak from my experience as a single mother.  Everyone can apply for government run daycare.  However, applying and getting a space for your child are not the same.  It took me 5 months to get a space for my "newborn" who was eventually 5 months old by the time she got a spot.  And as a single mother who works full time, I was supposedly at the top of the waiting list.  Government run daycare is "public daycare" and as such is subsidized on a sliding scale depending on annual income.   However, there is no guarantee of meeting public need, as there is in elementary school education.  If all the spaces are taken, too bad, you are on your own.

There are all sorts of "benefits" written about in the various government pamphlets and so on, but sometimes they are just not available because they don't care if they meet demand.  This is notoriously so with the public daycare systems in major cities.

One benefit to all National Health Insurance holders regardless of whether or not a Japanese citizen is the "gift" money for a child born (or in some sad instances miscarried in the 5 (?) months of the pregnancy).

Now the National government provides 100% health coverage in the NHI for all children up to 3 years of age.  Tokyo prefecture has added on to this (and some other places as well I think) to age of 6.  And some wards in Tokyo (Minato, Shibuya, Kita, Taito, and maybe more now) have supplemented out from their own pockets up to age 14 or 18 or whatever.

Now the equivalent of "food stamps" was not available to non Japanese non PR holders last time I asked in about 2001.  But this may also have changed.

My daughter (a US citizen on her mothers NHI policy) receives special additional coverage for her asthma condition which is thought to be a direct result of growing up a Tokyo where there is still so much un-scrubbed diesel exhaust.  They also offer special swimming classes twice a year to asthmatic children for free (which my daughter has never participated in and won't.)

Oddly, the public creche or "daycare" system was much bigger and all-encompassing after the war.  (Of course there were a lot more single mothers then too).   In recent years it has been whittled away bit by bit every consecutive year, in spite of the fact that there is a severe population decline.  The political attitude is that the private sector should be taking over in this service.  Unfortunately, the mothers are not buying it.  They have simply stopped having babies.