Shoko Kawata is the mayor of Yawata, a city near Kyoto in western Japan. She became one of the country’s youngest mayors when she was elected at the age of 35, but now she is making national (and international) news for doing something that I think is relatively normal.
Kawata recently announced that she plans to take four months away from work around the birth of her first child. This is not strange for women in Japan or many other countries (my wife is currently on maternity leave), but her announcement has resulted in debate across Japan.
This story isn’t really just about a mayor and maternity leave. We’re going to use this topic to learn some advanced English vocabulary related to politics, work, family, and Japanese society.
All of this vocabulary is taken from a BBC News article about this topic, which I will link in the description. So once you listen, you can go and try and read it yourself. Let’s get into the vocabulary.
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