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Abe's Womenomics Policy, 2013-2020: Tokenism, Gradualism, or Failed Strategy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Mark Crawford
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Abstract

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Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo left office with Japan's “Womenomics” policy having fallen far short of its 2020 targets, and with its greatest achievement, the increase in female non-regular employment, largely reversed by the COVID-19 recession. Although significant initiatives have been undertaken in the provision of childcare, tax reform, and parental leave policy, elite opinions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the government bureaucracy and the corporate sector militate against the mandatory regulations and political and social reforms that are still needed. These reforms are required because of the severity of Japan's demographic and economic challenges, the limited political feasibility of mass immigration, and the deep structural inertia built into Japan's employment system.

Keywords

AbeAbenomicschildcaregender equalityparental leaveWomenomics
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , February 2021 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2021

References

Notes

1 Kathy Matsui, Hiromi Suzuki and Yoko Ushio. “Womenomics: Buy the Female Economy”. Goldman Sachs Japan: Portfolio Strategy. August 13, 1999.

2 Kathy Matsui. “Is Womenomics Working?” Arancha Gonzalez and Marion Jansen, eds. Women Shaping Global Economic Governance. UK: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2019. Pp. 151-60 at 151, 156-157.

3 “Abenomics: For future growth, for future generations, and for a future Japan.”

4 Katharina Bucholz, “Half of Japanese Female Workers are Not Employed Full Time.” Statista, March 06, 2019.

5 Statistical Handbook of Japan 2020, Chapter 12 “Labour ”. Pp. 130-132.

6 Koike Yuriko. “Why Economic Inequality is Different in Japan.” World Economic Forum, March 02 2015.

7 Romit Dasgupta. Re-reading the salaryman in Japan: crafting masculinities. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013.

8 R. Taggart Murphy. Japan and the Shackles of the Past. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2004. P.157.

9 Stephanie Assmann, “Gender Equality in Japan: The Equal Employment Opportunity Law Revisited,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 45, No. 2, November 10, 2014.

10 Ayako Kano. Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016. See also Yoshie Kobayashi, A Path Toward Gender Equality: State Feminism in Japan. New York: Routledge, 2004. Pp.139-171.

11 Helen Macnaughtan, “Womenomics for Japan: is the Abe policy for gendered employment viable in an era of precarity?”, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 12, No. 1, March 30, 2015.

12 Noriko O. Tsuyo. “Low Fertility in Japan—No End in Sight”. AsiaPacific Issues, No. 131. June 2017. Pp.1-4.

13 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Japan Policy Brief, April 2015.

14 Kano. Japanese Feminist Debates. Op. cit., Ch.5.

15 Kazuo Yamaguchi. Gender Inequalities in the Japanese Workplace and Employment: Theories and Empirical Evidence. Singapore: Springer Press, 2019. Sect.1.2.1.

16 Ibid., Sect. 1.2.2.

17 Kano. Op.cit., p. 123.

18 Assmann, op. cit.

19 Kano. Op. cit. Pp. 3-4, 155-165. See also Tomomi Yamaguchi. “‘Gender Free’ Feminism in Japan: A Story of Mainstreaming and Backlash,” Feminist Studies 40, no.3, 2014. Pp.541-572.

20 Yamaguchi. op.cit. Sect. 1.2.2

21 “Work Style Reform Bill Enacted.” Japan Labor Issues, Volume 2 no. 10. November, 2018.

22 Naohiro Yashiro. “Serious Flaws in Japan's new ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ Law”. East Asia Forum, November 8, 2019.

23 Kazuo Yamaguchi. “Japan's Gender Gap”, Finance & Development, vol.56 no.1, March 2019, pp.26-29 at p.27.

24 Ibid.

25 https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/wp/wp-hw11/index.html.

26 Kazuo Yamaguchi 2016. “Determinants of the Gender Gap in the Proportion of Managers among White-Collar Regular Workers in Japan.” Japan Labor Review 51:7-31 at p. 8.

27 Yamaguchi. Ibid., at p. 7(emphasis added).

28 Ibid., p.30.

29 Glenda S. Roberts. “Leaning out for the long span: what holds women back from promotion in Japan?” Japan Forum, 32:4, 555-576, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2019.1664619.

30 Yamaguchi. “Determinants of the Gender Gap in the Proportion of Managers among White-Collar Regular Workers in Japan.” Op. cit., p.30.

31 Japan gov't to push back 30% target for women in leadership positions by up to 10 years.“ Mainichi Shimbun June 26, 2020.

32 Leo Lewis. “Japan's womenomics resists the skeptics.” Financial Times March 27, 2017.

33 Randall Jones, and Haruki Seitani. “Labour market reform in Japan to cope with a shrinking and ageing population,” OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 1568, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2019.

34 “Japan Has the Best Paternity Leave System, But Who's Using It?” Nippon.com July 25, 2019.

35 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Basic Survey of Gender Equality in Employment Management for fiscal 2019. July 31, 2020.

36 Janna Van Belle. “Paternity and parental leave policies across the European Union.” RAND Research Reports.

37 Motoko Rich. “Men in Japan Claim They Paid Dearly for Taking Paternity Leave.” New York Times, Sept. 13, 2019, Section A, P. 4.

38 In September 2020, a subcommittee of the Labour Policy Council, which advises Japan's Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, announced that it was considering a new paternity leave program:. There is also encouraging news that most prospective fathers in Japan's public service are planning to take at least 30 days of parental leave.

39 Keith Dowding. “Collective Action Problem.” Encyclopedia Britannica. March 07, 2013. Accessed December 19, 2020.

40 Shirakawa Toko, “Why Paternity Leave Should Be Mandatory,” Japan Times, June 14, 2019.

41 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's leaflet on the Work Style Reform with slight changes to the explanatory text by the Japanese Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT), 2018.

42 Kathy Matsui, Hiromi Suzuki, and Kazunori Tatebe. “Womenomics 5.0: 20 Years On”.

43 Jeff Kingston argues that “there is reason to be skeptical when Ministry of Justice officials invoke anti-immigration public opinion to justify their desired policy goal,” both because it is rare for the government to be deferential to public opinion, and because polling data indicates that public opinion is not as staunchly anti-immigrant as is often supposed. Kingston, “Demographic dilemmas, women and immigration.” Kingston, ed. Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Press, 2014. P. 197.

44 Ibid. Pp. 195-197.

45 Sabrina Volant, Gilles Pison, François Héran. “French fertility is the highest in Europe. Because of its immigrants?” Population & Societies, 2019/7 (No 568), p. 1-4. doi: 10.3917/popsoc.568.0001. URL.

46 “Record low of 16,772 children on day care waiting lists in Japan, welfare ministry says.” Japan Times, September 6, 2019.

47 Magdalena Osumi. “In a first, LGBT couples sue Japan over constitutionality of not recognizing same-sex marriage.” Japan Times February 14, 2019.

48 “Naha starts system to certify same-sex marriages.” Japan Times, July 08, 201.

49 “Dentsu Diversity Lab Conducts ”LGBT Survey 2018“. Dentsu. 10 January 2019.

50 “Japan is not a signatory to the [1993 Hague Convention on adoption]…and has followed a policy that lies somewhere between the diverging paths of extensive state involvement in adoptions [i.e. the international norm] and leaving society free to create its own solutions.” Hayes and Habu, op. cit., p. xii. Habu argues that the more laissez faire approach to adoption in Japan reflects the state's willingness and inclination to maintain “the structures of social, economic, and legal inequality”.

51 “The Imperial House Law.”

52 Emma Dalton. Women and Politics in Contemporary Japan. New York: Routledge, 2015. Ch.2.

53 Linda Sieg and Miyazaki Ami. “Path to the Diet still strewn with high hurdles for Japan's women.” Japan Times, July 18, 2019.

54 Dalton. Op. cit., Ch.4.

55 Jeff Kingston. Japan. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2019. P. 156.

56 For a discussion of Nippon Kaigi's influence on political activities during the Abe era, including of a discussion of NK's institutionalized ambivalence toward feminism, see Sachie Mizohata. “Nippon Kaigi: Empire, Contradiction and Japan's Future” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Volume 14, Number 4 November 1, 2016.

57 Julian Ryall. “Female workforce in Japan despair as Abe's womenomics dream fails to materialize before sudden handover.” The Telegraph, September 14 2020.

58 “Japan business lobby agrees to contribute 300 billion Yen to expand child care services.” Japan Times, December 1, 2017.

59 Cheang Ming. “Japan's childcare industry is creating an unlikely opportunity for some foreign firms.”

60 Mari Ishibashi and Ryosuke Eguchi, “Japan governance code to urge hiring targets for women and foreign bosses.” Nikkei Asia December 9, 2020.

61 Matsui. 2019. Op. cit. Pp.153-154.

62 Steven K. Vogel. “Japan's Ambivalent Pursuit of Shareholder Capitalism,” Politics & Society. 2019, Vol. 47(1) 117–144.

63 Philip Brasor and Masako Tsubuku. “Japan's tax laws get in way of more women working full time.” Japan Times March 5, 2019.

64 Ryushiro Kodaira. “Can Suga replicate success of maverick reformer Koizumi?” Nikkei Asia September 22, 2020. One encouraging sign in this direction is that Suga also already promised to make infertility treatment eligible for coverage by national health insurance.

65 Matsui. 2019. Op.Cit,. P.160.