Shoko Kawata will become Japan’s first sitting mayor to take maternity leave when she steps away from office ahead of the birth of her first child in September.

Ms Kawata, 35, mayor of Yawata in the country’s west, announced last month she would take 16 weeks off in September, eight weeks before giving birth and as many afterwards.

The mayor said she would receive updates online and remain involved in urgent decisions remotely.

“I’m surprised to hear this will be the first case of a mayor taking maternity leave after taking office,” Ms Kawata told reporters on 21 May, according to The Japan Times.

“I’m making arrangements to avoid affecting city administration or the implementation of my campaign pledges.”

Japan’s labour law provides for maternity leave before and after childbirth but mayors and lawmakers are classified as special public officials and fall outside its purview.

Yawata, therefore, had no existing framework covering maternity leave for a sitting mayor, prompting officials to create arrangements specifically for Ms Kawata’s absence, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

Speaking at a press conference on 26 May, Ms Kawata said she hoped the decision would “serve as an opportunity to accelerate discussions on developing a better institutional design”. During her absence, deputy mayor Shigeto Nose will act in her place.

Ms Kawata was born in August 1990 in Nara prefecture and studied economics at Kyoto University. After graduating in 2015, she joined Kyoto’s city government where she worked on welfare support cases and projects involving the redevelopment of former school sites. In 2022, she became secretary to Akiko Santo, president of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of Japan’s parliament.

Ms Kawata was elected mayor of Yawata as an independent candidate in November 2023 at the age of 33, becoming the youngest woman to lead a Japanese city government, according to NHK. She married in December 2025.

Ms Kawata’s leave announcement, however, prompted criticism from many members of the public. According to Asahi Shimbun, Yawata city received some 70 responses by phone and email after the announcement was made, with many arguing that getting pregnant during a fixed political term was “irresponsible” on her part and others saying the mayor taking leave was a waste of taxpayer money.

“The main argument from critics is that becoming pregnant while holding a fixed-term, high-responsibility position is seen as irresponsible. But I also see a contradiction. Society says it needs more children, yet childbirth is still treated as an individual responsibility. It welcomes children, but not childbirth, itself — and that gap surprised me,” Ms Kawata told The Japan Times.

“There’s also a very strong expectation that public officials should always be present and always working. I understand where that comes from, but it creates an environment where stepping away, even temporarily, is seen very harshly.”

Japan saw 705,809 births in 2025, down 15,179 from the year before and the lowest since comparable records began in 1899.

Successive governments have introduced measures aimed at reversing the decline, including childcare subsidies and policies encouraging fathers to take paternity leave.

Male politicians have previously taken parental leave, including Shinjiro Koizumi, who became the first cabinet minister to take it in 2020, and Kensuke Miyazaki, who in 2016 became the first member of the parliament to seek paternity leave.

Ms Kawata is believed to be the first sitting female municipal leader to take maternity leave while in office. Her husband was reportedly planning to take six months of childcare leave and would share caregiving responsibilities while she remained involved in major policy matters during her absence from office.

The mayor said city hall officials had discussed the possibility of bringing her child into the office after her return, although she noted that female politicians had previously faced criticism for doing so.

“I want to explore what balance looks like gradually,” she said.

Women are underrepresented in Japanese politics. They accounted for less than 16 per cent of the lower house of parliament’s members and the country elected its first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, only last year.

Japan ranked 118th out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Gender Gap Report.

Ms Kawata argued that women in Japan were often forced to choose between having a career and motherhood. “If they want to have a baby, they have to give up their career, or if they want to pursue a career, they have to give up having a baby,” she told CNN.

“Women shouldn’t be forced into an ‘either-or choice.’ We’re now working to improve this situation little by little, and I believe we are moving towards the design of systems aimed at achieving proper gender equality.”