This chapter analyses how workplace practices affect the behaviour of parents who are trying to find their preferred balance of work and care commitments. The chapter contains a concise summary of industrial relations and prevailing employment conditions, which in all three countries, but particularly in Japan, are characterized by a long working hours culture. In practice, this means that fathers in Japan hardly spend any time with their children, while many mothers therefore find it difficult to imagine that rearing a child and having a career are not mutually exclusive activities. The chapter also analyses the duality in the Japanese labour market and explains why so many mothers with older children are in low-paid non-regular employment. The chapter ends with a discussion of persisting gender roles in workplace cultures and considers why family-friendly workplace measures are not more common. In that context, two recent innovative Austrian and Japanese initiatives are discussed which try to tie the concept of family-friendly workplace measures to individual enterprise needs, while also committing employers on a long-term basis. Such initiatives deserve a wider application in Austria and Japan, while Irish policy makers should consider adopting a similar approach...