despite the high employment rate of single mothers in japan and the relatively low cost of the child rearing allowance as compared to a full incomereplacement benefit the government in introduced a number of reforms to further limit expenditure these were motivated by continuing growth in the number of recipients after the number of child rearing allowance recipients increased further reaching in but the divorce rate which is a leading indicator for this benefit caseload started to fall chisa single mothers are one of the groups assisted by welfare offices in cooperation with hello work through the employment support programme see above chisa reports that as workrelated services the japanese government is urging local prefectures and cities to establish special job centers and job training benefits for single mothers