Nikkei Woman Announces 2026 'Best Companies for Dual-Income Families Raising Children' Ranking: Tokyo Gas Takes 1st Place, Mitsui Chemicals 2nd

Nikkei BP Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Tetsuya Iguchi) has announced the 2026 edition of the 'Best Companies for Dual-Income Families Raising Children' ranking through its women's media platform 'Nikkei Woman,' which supports the careers and lifestyles of working women.

This ranking was created by Nikkei Woman using proprietary metrics based on responses from 451 companies, as part of the 'Corporate Women's Empowerment Survey 2026' conducted jointly by Nikkei Woman and the Nikkei Women's Empowerment Project under the Nikkei Group.

The 2026 edition prioritized whether companies provide an environment where both men and women can balance child-rearing with work and build fulfilling careers. Evaluation focused not only on the existence of policies but also on their actual usage, flexibility in work styles, and ease of career continuity. Reflecting recent trends in diverse workstyles, the scoring for traditional indicators such as 'percentage of women in general career tracks' was revised. Additionally, greater emphasis was placed on the length of paternity leave taken, beyond just the uptake rate.

All 26 evaluation items were scored out of 87 points and converted to a 200-point scale. Three judges—Professor Hiroko Sakizume from Hosei University's Faculty of Career Design, Manabu Tsukogoshi, Director of the Japan Gap Solution Institute, and Rie Yamaguchi, Post-Parental Leave Consultant (listed in alphabetical order)—each allocated 10 points to selected companies to finalize the ranking.

Key evaluation criteria included:

- Is the paternity leave uptake rate and duration sufficient among male employees?
- Are support systems in place for employees with children, such as assistance with childcare enrollment or babysitter arrangements?
- Have any female employees been promoted or advanced within three years after returning from childcare leave?
- Have any male employees taken childcare leave after being promoted to management within the past three years?
- Is there no gender disparity in the ratio of general career-track employees?
- Is there no gender gap in average length of service?
- Is there no gender bias in appointments to executive or managerial positions?
- Is the paid leave utilization rate sufficiently high?
- Is there no gender pay gap?
- What initiatives are in place to reduce overtime hours?

Top 5 Companies in the 2026 'Best Companies for Dual-Income Families Raising Children' Ranking:

Rank | Company | Score
--- | --- | ---
1st | Tokyo Gas | 152.4
2nd | Mitsui Chemicals | 149.4
3rd | Fujisoft | 141.6
4th | Bridgestone | 140.2
5th | Hitachi, Ltd. | 139.6

Tokyo Gas, ranked 1st, moved up from 2nd place last year. It received high marks for exceeding a 100% paternity leave uptake rate (※), with an average leave duration of approximately 70 days. The company was also praised for maintaining low average monthly overtime of about 14 hours, along with comprehensive systems supporting flexible workstyles such as a three-day weekend option, part-time work arrangements, and satellite offices.

※ Calculated by dividing the number of employees whose spouses gave birth in the past year by the total number of paternity leave instances in the past year; values over 100% are possible due to multiple leaves per employee.

■ Survey Overview: The 'Corporate Women's Empowerment Survey 2026' was jointly conducted by the Nikkei Woman editorial department and the Nikkei Women's Empowerment Project. The survey targeted 4,500 companies, including those listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market and Nagoya Stock Exchange Premier Market (as of November 2025), emerging market-listed companies with over 100 employees, and major unlisted companies including foreign-affiliated firms. Nikkei BP Consulting administered the survey by mailing questionnaires, with responses primarily from HR personnel. The survey period was mid-January to mid-February 2026. There were 451 valid responses (response rate: 10.02%). Nikkei Woman created the ranking based on this data using its own evaluation framework.

【Rankings and details for the top 30 'Best Companies for Dual-Income Families Raising Children' are available here】

Best Companies for Dual-Income Families Raising Children: Mitsui Chemicals at 2nd, and the 1st Place Company Revealed
https://woman.nikkei.com/atcl/column/22/061100208/061100001/

【Inquiries】

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