In the case that an UNMARRIED JET ALT got pregnant during her contract, will she be sent home and terminated or will she be given maternity leave and can still continue as JET ALT?
Being unmarried does not affect maternity leave. At the very least, by law, you are entitled to unpaid maternity leave. Insurance will cover 60% of your pay for 42 days before birth and 56 days afterwards. There are other costs/payments and so on, but that’s the basics.
Japan isn’t a third world country.
It’s not the 1950s 😂 even if it feels that way sometimes with the technology.
Just hypothetically… if it is you and you are a newly arriving JET, I’d prepare for them to not offer you a contract next year however.
She’s a grown adult and Japan doesn’t have Sharia law. She’s pregnant. That’s it. So what? Apply for special accomodations such as staggered commuting time if she’s in a city area, register the pregnancy at a women’s clinic, and let the office know from when will she like to take pregnancy leave. She can take it from around 7 to 8 months in depending on her condition, and she can receive paid maternity leave for up to 1 year. In the mean time, they may ask a direct hire ALT to cover, or if she is in a small district they will ask other JETs to do so. The idea of being fired for being pregnant is insane. You see that happening with the “foreign skills training” programs where they get people from SE Asia to work in allegedly slave-like conditions, but for normal companies and programs like JET, your human rights are for protected (for the most part anyway)..
Relationship status – married, unmarried, single – makes no difference to a persons maternity rights.
My contact includes special leave for maternity or paternity. So they shouldn’t kick someone out. It may reflect on their choice to recontract them at the end of the year though.
(Not saying it should or that it’s right/ just that i don’t think they technically need a valid reason to not recontract like you do with firing someone)
Not sure how up-to-date this is or how accurate it is, but I found this site for JETs.
Maternity leave is written into your contract, married or not. Japan is a conservative country but not that conservative…they can’t terminate you for getting pregnant.
I am a JET who got married during my tenure and had asked my CO/BoE about rights when family planning. (Note the married part doesn’t matter much, I’m just mentioning that because my husband and I were planning to have kids and wanted to know exactly what rights I had during my JET contracts)
In Japan MATERNITY Leave and CHILDCARE leave are two different things.
Maternity leave is a legal protected right, 6 weeks before your due date, and 8 weeks after your baby is born you have a legal, protected, and mandated right to not work so that you can heal from delivery and focus on your baby. This should have at least 60% of your salary paid through unemployment (your workplace might have another policy where it’s possible you may receive all your salary or more). ALL persons who are pregnant who work in Japan have this right, whether they be part time, temporary, yearly, or permanently hired.
Where the benefits may vary is in regard to CHILDCARE LEAVE. There are certain conditions to be met so that you can apply for childcare leave.
This is a copy-paste from a very useful Facebook group called Motherhood for ALTS in Japan, I recommend checking it out. This is from someone who works for their city and had attended an explanation workshop on maternity and childcare benefits
>”Childcare leave must be applied for one month in advance, and it is paid by unemployment insurance, 67% of the employee’s usual salary for the first 6 months and 50% for the remainder. ETA: There are 3 conditions for childcare leave payments:1. You must be enrolled in employment insurance2. You will not quit work during your childcare leave3. During the past two years, counted from the start of your maternity leave (not the start of childcare leave, which is later), you have worked at least 11 days for 12 months or more (if you don’t meet the day requirement, then working 80 hours or more in a month counts)-If you are a contract worker, then it must still be possible to renew your contract at the point when your child is 1.5 years in order to be eligible for leave. (Even if you’re on a yearly contract, you meet this condition if there is no limit on the amount of times you can renew your contract. JET ALTs and other limited contract workers don’t meet this condition if they’re in the last year and a half of their contract when their child is born.)
>Childcare leave allowance:
>Exemption from paying social insurance(If no one at work explains childcare leave to you and your partner, or doesn’t confirm with you and your partner whether you plan on taking it, THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW!)3. The requirement for contract employees to work for one year before taking childcare leave has been abolished. So even if you just started your job when your baby is born, you can take childcare leave. HOWEVER employers are legally allowed to keep the 1 year condition in their labor-management agreement (労使協定). The labor-management agreement is different from your actual work contract and not typically given to employees, so when in doubt, you have to ask to check the labor-management agreement.(ETA: Even if you just started your job and are legally eligible to take childcare leave, you are not necessarily eligible to be paid for it. See the ETA above for conditions)”
So it is possible to take childcare leave if you haven’t worked at least a year, but you need to confirm with your CO. It is possible they may still have the 1 year rule, and even if they don’t and you CAN take childcare leave, you are not necessarily eligible to be paid for it.
I didn’t have a child during my JET years, but I did get pregnant a year later while hired by the same BoE/CO but on a yearly contract. At the time, I did not qualify for childcare leave, so I couldn’t take it nor extend my contract due to circumstances. I was paid my full salary during the time I could take my maternity leave.
Now I’m pregnant again, working at the same position as when my first pregnancy, and not taking childcare leave this round because my husband will take childcare leave. But once again, I am getting maternity leave and paid for those 8 weeks before my due date (this is policy at my BoE, I get an extra two weeks), and 8 weeks after the child is born.
In the least, you will be able to take maternity leave. Note that if you need to return to work after maternity leave, a lot of daycares do NOT accept 0 year olds and very few will accept them from 5 months or older. And the nursery fees vary by city but are usually based on your collective household income, I pay ¥54,000/month for my 1 year old.
When you are a parent, there are a few other special benefits for working, for example, I have two 45 min periods I can use in the day for taking my child to daycare or picking them up and my salary will not be decreased. I can even combine them to leave work 1 hour and 30 min early every day until they turn 1 1/2 years old. I also have 5 special leave days that I can use throughout the year to take care of them when they are sick. If you have two kids, you can get up to 10 of those special leave days. So there are some good benefits, but you need to ask your CO to inform you of your rights, and note that it is actually illegal for them to not let you know what benefits are available to you.
pretty sure it’s illegal here to fire someone for being pregnant… like why would it matter???
12 comments
Being unmarried does not affect maternity leave. At the very least, by law, you are entitled to unpaid maternity leave. Insurance will cover 60% of your pay for 42 days before birth and 56 days afterwards. There are other costs/payments and so on, but that’s the basics.
Japan isn’t a third world country.
It’s not the 1950s 😂 even if it feels that way sometimes with the technology.
Just hypothetically… if it is you and you are a newly arriving JET, I’d prepare for them to not offer you a contract next year however.
She’s a grown adult and Japan doesn’t have Sharia law. She’s pregnant. That’s it. So what? Apply for special accomodations such as staggered commuting time if she’s in a city area, register the pregnancy at a women’s clinic, and let the office know from when will she like to take pregnancy leave. She can take it from around 7 to 8 months in depending on her condition, and she can receive paid maternity leave for up to 1 year. In the mean time, they may ask a direct hire ALT to cover, or if she is in a small district they will ask other JETs to do so. The idea of being fired for being pregnant is insane. You see that happening with the “foreign skills training” programs where they get people from SE Asia to work in allegedly slave-like conditions, but for normal companies and programs like JET, your human rights are for protected (for the most part anyway)..
Relationship status – married, unmarried, single – makes no difference to a persons maternity rights.
My contact includes special leave for maternity or paternity. So they shouldn’t kick someone out. It may reflect on their choice to recontract them at the end of the year though.
(Not saying it should or that it’s right/ just that i don’t think they technically need a valid reason to not recontract like you do with firing someone)
Not sure how up-to-date this is or how accurate it is, but I found this site for JETs.
https://www.ajetpsg.com/pregnancy
Why would it matter if they’re married or not??
Maternity leave is written into your contract, married or not. Japan is a conservative country but not that conservative…they can’t terminate you for getting pregnant.
I am a JET who got married during my tenure and had asked my CO/BoE about rights when family planning. (Note the married part doesn’t matter much, I’m just mentioning that because my husband and I were planning to have kids and wanted to know exactly what rights I had during my JET contracts)
In Japan MATERNITY Leave and CHILDCARE leave are two different things.
Maternity leave is a legal protected right, 6 weeks before your due date, and 8 weeks after your baby is born you have a legal, protected, and mandated right to not work so that you can heal from delivery and focus on your baby. This should have at least 60% of your salary paid through unemployment (your workplace might have another policy where it’s possible you may receive all your salary or more). ALL persons who are pregnant who work in Japan have this right, whether they be part time, temporary, yearly, or permanently hired.
Where the benefits may vary is in regard to CHILDCARE LEAVE. There are certain conditions to be met so that you can apply for childcare leave.
This is a copy-paste from a very useful Facebook group called Motherhood for ALTS in Japan, I recommend checking it out. This is from someone who works for their city and had attended an explanation workshop on maternity and childcare benefits
>”Childcare leave must be applied for one month in advance, and it is paid by unemployment insurance, 67% of the employee’s usual salary for the first 6 months and 50% for the remainder. ETA: There are 3 conditions for childcare leave payments:1. You must be enrolled in employment insurance2. You will not quit work during your childcare leave3. During the past two years, counted from the start of your maternity leave (not the start of childcare leave, which is later), you have worked at least 11 days for 12 months or more (if you don’t meet the day requirement, then working 80 hours or more in a month counts)-If you are a contract worker, then it must still be possible to renew your contract at the point when your child is 1.5 years in order to be eligible for leave. (Even if you’re on a yearly contract, you meet this condition if there is no limit on the amount of times you can renew your contract. JET ALTs and other limited contract workers don’t meet this condition if they’re in the last year and a half of their contract when their child is born.)
>Childcare leave allowance:
>Exemption from paying social insurance(If no one at work explains childcare leave to you and your partner, or doesn’t confirm with you and your partner whether you plan on taking it, THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW!)3. The requirement for contract employees to work for one year before taking childcare leave has been abolished. So even if you just started your job when your baby is born, you can take childcare leave. HOWEVER employers are legally allowed to keep the 1 year condition in their labor-management agreement (労使協定). The labor-management agreement is different from your actual work contract and not typically given to employees, so when in doubt, you have to ask to check the labor-management agreement.(ETA: Even if you just started your job and are legally eligible to take childcare leave, you are not necessarily eligible to be paid for it. See the ETA above for conditions)”
So it is possible to take childcare leave if you haven’t worked at least a year, but you need to confirm with your CO. It is possible they may still have the 1 year rule, and even if they don’t and you CAN take childcare leave, you are not necessarily eligible to be paid for it.
I didn’t have a child during my JET years, but I did get pregnant a year later while hired by the same BoE/CO but on a yearly contract. At the time, I did not qualify for childcare leave, so I couldn’t take it nor extend my contract due to circumstances. I was paid my full salary during the time I could take my maternity leave.
Now I’m pregnant again, working at the same position as when my first pregnancy, and not taking childcare leave this round because my husband will take childcare leave. But once again, I am getting maternity leave and paid for those 8 weeks before my due date (this is policy at my BoE, I get an extra two weeks), and 8 weeks after the child is born.
In the least, you will be able to take maternity leave. Note that if you need to return to work after maternity leave, a lot of daycares do NOT accept 0 year olds and very few will accept them from 5 months or older. And the nursery fees vary by city but are usually based on your collective household income, I pay ¥54,000/month for my 1 year old.
When you are a parent, there are a few other special benefits for working, for example, I have two 45 min periods I can use in the day for taking my child to daycare or picking them up and my salary will not be decreased. I can even combine them to leave work 1 hour and 30 min early every day until they turn 1 1/2 years old. I also have 5 special leave days that I can use throughout the year to take care of them when they are sick. If you have two kids, you can get up to 10 of those special leave days. So there are some good benefits, but you need to ask your CO to inform you of your rights, and note that it is actually illegal for them to not let you know what benefits are available to you.
pretty sure it’s illegal here to fire someone for being pregnant… like why would it matter???