TOKYO, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Japan's upper house of parliament on Friday approved legislation to provide broader childcare support including making preschool education free as a means to address the nation's dire demographic crisis, which includes a declining birthrate.
"The financial burden of education and child-rearing weighs heavily on young people, becoming a bottleneck for them to give birth and raise children. That is why we are making education free," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary session a day earlier.
The bill, which passed the lower house in April, is slated to cost 776.0 billion yen (7.1 billion U.S. dollars) a year and is part Abe's push to expand social security provisions.
It will be funded by revenue generated from a planned consumption tax hike in October, the government has said.
The legislation mandates that preschool education will be free from October for all children aged between three and five years old and day-care facilities will be free for low-income households for children up to two years old.
In the case, children are sent by their parents to preschools that operate outside of the local governments' program, subsidies will be offered to parents of children aged between three and five years old and for those with children aged two and younger, although free school meals will not be covered by the program.
The government is hoping that by proving such financial support to families with preschool-aged children, more families will feel that having children is less of a financial burden and the country's low birthrate will get a boost.
In 2017, the country's fertility rate stood at record low of 1.43, official figures showed.
Abe prioritizing the use of planned tax revenues for childcare support over addressing the nation's dire fiscal health, is aimed at broadly tackling the nation's demographic crisis involving a rapidly aging and shrinking population, hollowed out workforce and extremely tight labor market, and declining marriage and slumping birthrate.
