By Tyler Makepeace
At the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan expounded on his program for economic reform, known as Abenomics. The plan consists of three “arrows”: monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms. Structural reforms, the third arrow, have been the most difficult to implement, among them increasing the economic opportunities for women in Japan. As Abe noted during his speech “the female labor force in Japan is the most under-utilized resource. Japan must become a place where women shine.” Abe later stated a firm goal to have women in 30 percent of “leading positions” in Japan by 2020, however the method by which this goal will be realized is anything but clear.
Currently, Japanese women face a number of challenges in the workforce, ranging from cultural norms to institutionalized incentives. The 2013 Global Gender Gap report, prepared by the World Economic Forum, placed Japan at 105 out of the 135 countries included. Only 62.5 percent of women participated in the workforce, compared with 67 percent in the United States, and after having their first child, 70 percent of Japanese women permanently exit the workforce, compared to 30 percent in the United States.
Most disheartening, at large Japanese companies only 10.6 percent of managers were female, and female participation in the Japanese Diet declined from 11 percent to 8 percent after the 2012 elections. Despite some incremental gains in the labor participation rate since 2010, Kathy Matsui, the managing director at Goldman Sachs who originally coined the term “womenomics,” estimates that if the level of female participation in the labor force were increased to equal the participation rate of males in Japan, it would lead to an increase in Japan’s GDP of about 12.5 percent.
In order to map out Japan’s progress in the area of Womenomics, the government has developed a several key performance indicators, or KPI.
- Target 30% female representation in leadership across society by 2020
- Lift female participation rate in workforce between ages 25-44 to 73% by 2020
- Raise the percentage of women returning to work after first child to 55% by 2020
- Boost supply of childcare facilities with aim of eliminating children on waitlists by 2017
- Increase percentage of fathers who take paternity leave to 13% by 2020
Matsui, in her most recent report on womenomics in Japan, urges Abe and the Japanese government to go further in their reforms, specifically cites deregulating daycare centers, liberalizing immigration laws, changing the tax code which currently provide incentives to keep women in part-time positions, mandating corporate disclosures of gender-related statistics, and encouraging Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party to boost female participation in government. While unleashing womenomics is particularly crucial in Japan due to its aging society, according the Global Gender Gap Report “no country has closed the economic participation gap or the political empowerment gap,” therefore, every single country, whether developing or developed, can gain by embracing women’s participation in business and politics.
Tyler Makepeace is a Knowledge Management Intern at CIPE.
