In Japan, the obstacles faced by working mothers are so pervasive that there’s a word for it: matahara. The term itself is a portmanteau, combining the Japanese words for “maternity” and “harassment.” But it captures the wide range of issues that women encounter when they get pregnant—being pressured to resign, getting penalized for taking leave, or missing out on professional opportunities. Look no further than the reaction to Shoko Kawata, the mayor of the Japanese city Yawata, who recently announced that she would go on maternity leave and was roundly criticized.
But the term likely also resonates with plenty of working mothers in the U.S. As Fast Company contributor Laëtitia Vitaud points out, pregnancy bias in this country may be more subtle but it is no less insidious. “Americans might be tempted to read this as an exotic story about a faraway work culture. They shouldn’t,” Vitaud wrote.
American women dropped out of the workforce in significant numbers last year, and the decline was greatest for college-educated women of young kids. The steep cost of childcare and loss of flexible work policies, as companies have asked their employees to return to the office, have left many working mothers with few options. And all this is happening as the fertility rate continues to drop across the country, much like it has in Japan.
Read on to understand what the U.S. could learn from the way Japan treats working mothers—and how we could actually help women stay in the workforce after they have children.
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