in addition research is increasingly concerned with analysing the worklife balance barriers to improving this balance and the characteristics of companies implementing measures to balance work and family life and with demonstrating the benefits of familyfriendly policies at company level wakisaka atsumi and kodama etal in a law was passed obliging companies with more than workers to set up action plans to promote their worklife balance and an accreditation system was introduced to encourage companies to implement childcareleave schemes oecd a and takeishi other measures concern reducing working hours for parents with young children