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Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office
6-1, Nagata-cho 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8914 Japan

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White Paper on Health and Welfare

The Ministry of Health and Welfare published the 1998 version of the White Paper on Health and Welfare on 12 June 1998. The main theme of this White Paper is "a society with fewer children." This White Paper notes that major factors which cause declining birth rate and surrounding social conditions are the unbalanced role sharing between men and women, whereby men work and women both work and run the household, as well the lack of male employees' participation in the local community activities. Also, this White Paper, in order to lessen the excessive burden placed on mothers, clearly expresses that there is no rational basis to the general belief that children need to be with their mothers for the first three years of their lives, and that it is necessary for fathers to play a more active role in child rearing.