Japan Panel Proposes Fertility Treatment Insurance Coverage
A Japanese government panel Wednesday proposed that fertility treatment be covered by the country’s public health insurance program as part of efforts to tackle the declining birthrate.
Category: Fertility
Japan Fertility Treatment Insurance to Cover Women under 43
The plan will be proposed on Wednesday at a meeting of the Central Social Insurance Medical Council, which advises the health minister. Details of the plan will be decided in or after January.
During opening arguments over forced sterilization in Osaka, hearing impaired woman communicates through signer: “I would have a different life if I had children. I can’t forgive the country that made the law.”
The first oral argument in a lawsuit in which hearing-impaired people in Kansai sought compensation for damages from the government was held at the Osaka High Court on the 30th, alleging that they were forced to undergo fertility surgery under the former Eugenic Protection Law.
Japan to give public employees paid leave for fertility treatment
An online survey, conducted in January and February, receiving responses from roughly 47,000 national public employees, showed 1.8 percent were undergoing fertility treatment while 10.1 percent said they have experience with it and 3.7 percent said they had considered it.
Among people who have experienced fertility treatment or were considering it, 62.5 percent said it was “very difficult” to balance it with work while 11.3 percent said it was “impossible,” the most common reasons being the need to make frequent visits to the doctor, cost and scheduling conflicts with work.
The National Personnel Authority’s new scheme aims to ease the burden by enabling full-time and part-time national public employees to take five days of paid leave, with five additional days available if necessary.
The time off can be broken up and used flexibly, such as by taking a few hours off to see the doctor during work, for example.
Increasing access to fertility treatment has been a focus for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who pushed for it to be covered by Japan’s public health insurance from next April.
The number of babies born in Japan fell to a record low of 840,832 in 2020, with the recent downward trend exacerbated by the social and economic impact of COVID-19.
The total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to in her lifetime, stood at 1.34, down from the previous year by 0.02 point.
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