Single-parent households in Japan have a somewhat surprising characteristic.
Among single-mother households, 86.3% of mothers are employed. That is high compared with many OECD countries. Yet the relative poverty rate for households with children and only one adult remains extremely high in Japan, at 44.7%.
In other words, the problem in Japan is not simply that single parents do not have jobs. Many are working, yet they still have difficulty escaping poverty.
One reason is that earning an income and raising children both fall on the same person.
School and daycare drop-offs, meals, housework, and suddenly having to care for a sick child all have to be handled by one parent. A parent may want to work longer hours to earn more, but overtime or night shifts are not always realistic when there is no one else to take over childcare.
This is compounded by the position of women in the Japanese labor market. Among employed mothers in single-mother households, only about half are regular employees, while many work part-time or in other non-regular jobs.
Having a job and earning enough to support a family are not the same thing.
Child support after divorce is another major issue.
Among divorced single-mother households, only 28.1% are currently receiving child support. Fewer than half have even agreed on child-support payments.
As a result, even when a child has another living parent, many households cannot rely on child support as a stable second source of income.
Japan has introduced new measures to address this problem, including a system that allows a parent to claim a set amount of child support even when no amount was agreed upon at the time of divorce, as well as measures intended to make unpaid child support easier to recover.
Single-father households also face the difficulty of combining work and childcare alone. But single-mother households are much more common in Japan, and the economic disadvantages women face in wages and employment can make their situation especially severe.
The distinctive feature of Japan is not that single parents are outside the workforce.
Many are already working. Poverty nevertheless remains high.
It is difficult to earn enough while handling childcare alone, and financial support from the other parent is often unreliable. The combination of a high employment rate and a high poverty rate is one of the most striking features of the economic risk faced by single-parent households in Japan.
Sources: Children and Families Agency, “Support for Single-Parent Families” and the “2021 National Survey of Single-Parent Households and Similar Households” (employment status and employment type of single mothers, child-support arrangements and receipt); Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, “Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions 2025” (relative poverty rate for households with children and one adult); Ministry of Justice, materials on the Act Partially Amending the Civil Code and Related Laws concerning child-rearing arrangements after parental divorce.
