Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Japanese

3. Attitude toward Child Rearing

(1) Parents’ Way to Have Contact with Children

Fathers who “often” “play with playing cards or toys” and “do physical activities” with children accounted for the largest proportion.

With regard to parents’ way to “often” have contact with children, the largest proportion of mothers was 89.0% with “have meals with children”, followed by 73.3% with “talk to children actively”. Meanwhile, that for fathers was 51.0% with “talk to children actively”, followed by 45.7% with “promote physical contact by holding children on parent’s lap”.

Comparing the proportion between mothers and fathers, fathers who “often” “play with playing cards or toys” and “do physical activities” accounted for larger proportion than mothers. The proportion of mothers who “often” do in any other way to have contact with children was larger than that of fathers.

With regard to the proportion of parents who “often” “promote physical contact by holding children on parent’s lap” according to the existence of younger sibling(s), “with younger sibling(s)” was 45.9% and “without younger sibling” 45.5% among fathers, showing almost the same percentage. Among mothers, “with younger sibling(s)” accounted for 48.5%, while, “without younger sibling” 69.9%, showing higher percentage than “with younger sibling(s)” by 21.4% (Table 11).

Table 11 Parents’ way to have contact with children

(Unit: %)
  Total Often As often as
possible
Never (Previously reported)
Often
With
younger
sibling(s)
Without
younger
sibling
Mother’s way to have
contact with children
Play with playing cards or toys

100.0

14.7

66.2

17.4

13.2

15.8

Do physical activities

100.0

12.5

62.5

23.4

12.9

12.1

Take a bath with children

100.0

71.8

18.3

8.6

75.4

69.2

Read books or picture books to children

100.0

34.3

51.5

12.8

37.0

32.3

Talk to children actively

100.0

73.3

24.0

1.2

72.1

74.2

Have meals with children

100.0

89.0

9.2

0.5

89.6

88.7

Promote physical contact by holding children
on parent’s lap

100.0

60.9

33.8

3.9

48.5

69.9

Praise children

100.0

54.2

43.7

0.8

50.6

56.7

Father’s way to have
contact with children
Play with playing cards or toys

100.0

18.1

55.0

24.8

18.1

18.2

Do physical activities

100.0

28.1

52.9

17.1

30.1

26.5

Take a bath with children

100.0

35.5

48.7

13.9

38.0

33.7

Read books or picture books to children

100.0

8.2

36.5

53.3

9.5

7.1

Talk to children actively

100.0

51.0

40.6

6.5

51.5

50.7

Have meals with children

100.0

37.0

52.3

8.9

36.2

37.6

Promote physical contact by holding children
on parent’s lap

100.0

45.7

42.7

9.7

45.9

45.5

Praise children

100.0

42.2

49.4

6.5

42.5

42.0

Notes:
1) As for “mother’s way to have contact with children”, the figures are based on the total number of responses with children
living with their mothers (total number of mothers: 38,201), and as for “father’s way to have contact with children”, the figures
are based on the total number of responses with children living with their fathers (total number of fathers: 36,040) in the 6th
survey.
2) The total includes “unknown” concerning the way to have contact with children.
3) The proportion of “with younger sibling(s)” and “without younger sibling” to the total is as follows.
Children living with mothers: “With younger sibling(s)”: 42.0%, “Without younger sibling”: 57.5%
Children living with fathers: “With younger sibling(s)”: 43.3%, “Without younger sibling”: 56.2%

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