我國與日本在社會發展歷程中，除深受儒家思想影響，於社會價值方面，特別是性別角色分工上具有相近性外，人口結構亦都面臨著少子女化與高齡化的嚴峻考驗，在社會安全制度方面，也強調以社會保險的方式來保障不同職域別人口群。近年來，我國雖積極推動各項落實性別平等的政策，但在強化兩性共同承擔育兒照顧責任方面，仍有賴國家、企業的共同努力，才能使法案更加具體落實，故日本追求「工作與家庭平衡」的育兒假實施經驗，可做為我國政策推展的參考。本文主要探討日本近十餘年來，發展兩性育兒照顧假之政策脈絡與推動現況，特別是實施男女勞動者兼顧職場與家庭責任的法令配套，及企業職場內部管理政策上加以著墨。也期待經由透過探討「兩性共同責任」價值的實踐，及實施「工作與家庭平衡」政策困境之反思，進一步考量如何打破「家庭照顧責任」即「女性責任」的迷思，以鼓勵男性更願意申請育兒假、樂意承擔家庭照顧責任，而達成性別日趨平權，國家社會更為繁榮的目標。

Due to the deep influence of Confucianism and its social value, Taiwan has the similar social development as Japan’s. Except for the similar expectation on gender roles, both encounter the severe challenge of declining fertility rate and aging society in population structure. Also, in the social security system, social insurance is emphasized to ensure people in different occupations. In recent years, Taiwan actively promotes many policies to fulfill gender equality. However, we still rely on the mutual efforts of the government and enterprises to put policies into practice more concretely in the aspect of consolidating the idea of both men and women taking tasks in parental care. As a result, the Japanese experience can be a reference for our policies promotion.
This paper will investigate how the Japanese government develops the policies on parental leave in history and its current situation, especially on the regulatory scheme for men and women who both take work and family responsibilities and on the family friendly policy of an enterprise internal management. Through implementing the value of working men and women and life balance value and reflecting policy implementation difficulties, we can further ponder how to break the myth of family care and female responsibilities and how to encourage men to apply parental leave and to be more willing to take more family care responsibility. Doing so will help to achieve gender equality and the goal of national prosperity.