The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 19 | Issue 4 | Number 4 | Article ID 5540 | Feb 15, 2021

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

Mark Crawford

Abstract: Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzoleft office with Japan’s “Womenomics” policyhaving fallen far short of its 2020 targets, andwith its greatest achievement, the increase infemale non-regular employment, largelyreversed by the COVID-19 recession. Althoughsignificant initiatives have been undertaken inthe provision of childcare, tax reform, andparental leave policy, elite opinions within therul ing Liberal Democratic Party, thegovernment bureaucracy and the corporatesector militate against the mandatoryregulations and political and social reforms thatare still needed. These reforms are requiredbecause of the severity of Japan’s demographicand economic challenges, the limited politicalfeasibility of mass immigration, and the deepstructural inertia built into Japan’s employmentsystem.

Keywords: Abe, Abenomics, childcare, genderequality, parental leave, Womenomics

“Creating an environment in which womenfind it comfortable to work… is no longer amatter of choice for Japan. It is instead amatter of the greatest urgency.” -- PM AbeShinzō, speaking to the United Nations inSeptember 2013. (Emphasis added.)

“Since Japan’s population is shrinking,capital is finite, and productivity gains willtake time, unless radical steps are taken

quickly, we argued [in 1999] that thenation not only faced the risk of a furtherdecline in its productivity and potentialgrowth rate, but eventually, lowerstandards of living as well.” --KathyMatsui, Vice-Chair and Chief Strategist ofGoldman Sachs Japan. (Emphasis added.)

Image Source: Savvy Tokyo

Abe’s Womenomics Policy in HistoricalContext

In 1999 a group of investment strategists atGoldman Sachs Japan led by Kathy Matsuiapplied the term ‘Womenomics’ to describetheir recommended strategy for revitalizing thestagnant Japanese economy by “closing thegender employment gap” and promoting thebetter utilization of human capital throughworkplace equality.1 Two decades later, and sixyears after seeing Womenomics adopted asofficial government policy, Matsui claimed that“one of the biggest game changers in Japan’sattitude towards gender issues was the shiftfrom diversity being a social or human rights

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issue to being an economic and businessimperative.”2 This article critically examineswhether the elevation of gender withineconomic discourse has been matched byresults in the economy and in society. It findsthat notwithstanding several importantinnovations in the past three years relating tolabour standards, pay equity, tax policy, andthe funding of both paternity leave anddaycare, Japan seems fated to fall drasticallyshort of nearly all its stated goals for genderequity in the 2020s.

“Abenomics”, a brochure and website by theGovernment of Japan updated in June 2020,touted the Abe government’s achievementssince taking office in 2012 in promoting thestatus of women in the Japanese economy.3 Itpointed out that, between 2012 and 2019, thenumber o f women in pr iva te sec tormanagement positions “approached 10%”,while 3.3 million joined the workforce. Animpressive graph showed Japan’s labour forceparticipation rate for females vaulting past thatof the United States during this period, to74.0% compared with just 70.9% for the US.Unfortunately, these statistics were misleadinginsofar as they failed to mention the precarityof the female workforce. In 2017, 50% of the 28million women in the Japanese labour marketwere in ‘non-regular’ jobs with few benefits,lower pay and shorter hours than ‘regular’ (i.e.‘permanent’) employees, in comparison to just16.7% of the 35 million male workers.4 By2019, these ratios had risen to 56.0% offemales and 22.8% of males respectively.5

Unsurprisingly, women disproportionately borethe brunt of unemployment in the COVID-19recession. Of the record 970,000 people whohad just been laid off in April 2020, 710,000were women, making them the “shockabsorbers” of the Japanese economy.

The current situation of Japan’s female workersis deeply rooted in 75 years of history. PostwarJapan pioneered novel institutions thatcombined both foreign and domestic elements

in the realms of education, the financial system,bureaucracy and employment practices. In theeconomic arena, this meant that the export ofmanufactured products, capital and people wasstressed, while their import was not. Thisstrategy was facilitated and reinforced by ahigh domestic savings rate and high exportearnings. An employment structure was alsodeveloped based on lifetime employment andseniority wages for elite workers in largecorporations, enterprise unions which agreedto non-confrontational labour relations andlong hours in exchange for job security, andpaternalistic company welfare functions in elitecorporations. These institutions of high-speedgrowth worked well enough to make possibleJapan’s rise to being the world’s second largesteconomy, consistent with an advanced welfarestate and lower levels of income inequality thanalmost every other developed country.6

Underpinning this entire system, however, wasa sexual division of labour in which womenaccepted virtually sole responsibility forhousehold management, the raising of children,and the care of aging parents. Women’smanagement of household finances gave theman important role in helping to generate thesavings that financed the economic miracle, butno say in shaping economic institutions or thesalaryman culture that pervaded Japanesesociety despite only directly benefitting a smallnumber of elite male middle-class workers.7 Asmillions of women gained ground in affluence,education, and juridical status, many began tosee the role of housewife and mother as a trap.R. Taggart Murphy describes this perceivedtrap as being more pronounced, and moreproblematic, in Japan than in other industrialand industrializing countries, where men areboth more able and more willing to share inhousework and child-rearing. “For whileJapanese blue-collar workers, salarymen,farmers, small business owners, shadowy FarRight fixers, ambitious politicians and theUniversity of Tokyo-bred mandarin class…hadall had their input during the 1950s when the

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institutions of high-speed growth assumed theirfinal shape, women were not represented. Theconsequences of their exclusion—both for themand for the men they married and the childrent h e y r a i s e d — w o u l d p r o v eincalculable.”8 Feminist critiques have shownthat the first generation of laws dealing withemployment equity, childcare, eldercare, andsexual violence were inadequate to address thedeep structural and cultural impedimentsfacing women struggling to balance familyresponsibilities with careers.9 10 As HelenMacnaughtan observed in 2015, “[t]helingering ideal of the male salaryman and thefemale shufu (housewife) is now hugelydisconnected from social realities, but remainsas an ideal because the alternative – therenegotiation of men, women, work andchildcare – is complex.”11

Moreover, the growing disillusionment ofJapanese women with the shufu role model hasoccurred within an economic context ofincreased precarity of employment since theGreat Recession of the 1990s. The increase innon-regular work for both males and femaleshas meant that people are increasinglyreluctant to commit to marriage andchildrearing, which, in combination with arestrictive immigration policy, has meant thatJapan is aging faster than any other largecountry.12 The Japanese population has beenshrinking, from its historic high of 128.5 millionin 2009 to 124.2 million in 2020. (If this trendwere to continue, there could be as few as 88million people by 2055, with 38% of thatpopulation aged 65 or older, supported by aworkforce that will have been cut in half to just45 mill ion.) Even under less alarmingscenarios, and despite the stimulus afforded byAbenomics, Japan may find it increasinglydifficult to encourage investment, avoiddeclining consumption of goods and servicesand deflation, manage its public debt (alreadythe world’s highest relative to GDP), ormaintain its high standard of living. From ademographic perspective, the failure to

restructure the gender order has produced theworst of both worlds: the rejection of the shufumodel that once encouraged larger families,without the kinds of economic opportunities,cultural changes and institutional supports thatcould enable Japanese women to effectivelycombine child-rearing with careers (orcontribute to raising productivity).

In 2020, Japanese men still did less houseworkthan their counterparts in any other developedcountry, while women got less sleep than any oftheir counterparts, according to the OECD.13

The postwar employment model and severalaspects of its associated social compact are stillf irmly in place, despite this growingdysfunction, which explains how a G-7 countrythat ranked 19th among all nations in the 2020United Nations Human Development Index hasalso slid to 121st out of 153 countries in theWorld Economic Forum’s Global Gender GapReport] , a drop of 40 places since 2006. Theequality ranking is a composite of four sub-indices: a respectable 40th in health; a moreworrying 91st in educational attainment; and adismal 115th in economic opportunity and144th in political empowerment---the latterbeing by far the worst of any advancedindustrial country. This paradox (no othercountry in the top 20 of the UNHD index is alsoin the bottom 50 of the WEF index of genderequality) is largely attributable to Japan’semployment system, and to the inherentlimitations of what Ayako Kano has called“state feminism” (state sponsorship and co-optation of gender issues), particularly underthe aegis of the LDP and Abe Shinzo.14 At issueis whether a few recent major initiatives in theareas of the provision of childcare, parentalleave, work hours and tax policy, in addition toa number of ambitious but completelyvoluntary targets, promotional and educationalactivities, are adequate to address thesedemographic and economic challenges.

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Continued Structural Inertia in theEmployment System and the ‘Breadwinner’Model

Most scholars seeking to explain the very slowadvancement of women in the Japaneseeconomy, despite various types of legalsupport, stress that Japan’s l i fet imeemployment and seniority-based system forelite workers was generally ‘rational’ duringthe postwar period of high growth. Japanesefirms anticipated an excess of labor demandover supply; lifetime security increasedretention rates and prevented the loss of firm-specific human capital; and seniority-basedwage and retirement schemes acted as a formof deferred payment that gave employees theincentive to work long term. Sociologist KazuoYamaguchi has argued that this appearance ofrationality may have been deceptive: thesystem only had a limited (“strategic”)rationality because of specific historicalconditions and cultural assumptions that wereemphasized or constructed at a particularsocio-economic juncture, the irrationality ofwhich only became apparent once Japan’spostwar period of rapid economic growth hadpassed. Yamaguchi observes that the popular‘cultural’ theory that traces the origins ofJapanese firms’ attributes to the Edo samuraihousehold “fails to explain why, barring a fewexceptions, the Edo period samurai system wasnot widespread among Japanese companiesduring the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showaperiods, and was only popularized during aperiod of rapid economic growth.”15 Nor does itexplain why more elements of Japanese feudalagricultural households (uji), in which malesand females worked together, were not choseninstead. He finds that “institutional inertia” wascreated in postwar Japan as mutuallyreinforcing practices, based upon strong jobsecurity and seniority-based wages, becameestablished. These possessed high stabilitynotwithstanding the existence of other, morerationally desirable institutions, which couldhave better served to attract, develop, and

retain female employees. “From its inception,the Japanese employment system was createdby overlooking the utilization of femalepersonnel.” 16

Under this system, opportunities for regularemployment are scarce for those who leave theworkforce, regardless of their experience oreducational attainment, and regardless ofwhether they do so for childcare reasons.Although this lack of second chancestechnically applies to men as well, womenexperience far higher turnover rates duringchild-rearing ages, typically retiring fromregular jobs upon marriage or the birth of afirst child, and then returning to the workforceas non-regular workers after their children aregrown. As several leading Japanese labourscholars have stressed, regular employment inJapanese firms makes them “membership-type”organizations, and not just “job-type”;“kintract” (i.e. the combination of kinship andcontract, applying the feudal loyalty to thehousehold to the modern corporate context asthe quid pro quo for lifetime employment)rather than simply “contract”. Even theJapanese bonus system, which pays almost allregular employees at the same rate dependingon company sales or profits, is starkly differentfrom most Western-style bonus systems, whichreward individual performance. When pay ispremised upon collective performance, bothmanagement and trade union peers can enforcecorporate norms, including the expectation oflong hours from regular employees—anexpectation premised upon the so-called‘traditional’ sexual division of household labourin which females play the supporting role to themale breadwinner. The lifetime employmentsystem, the seniority-based wage system, andthe Japanese-style bonus system all serve toreinforce employee acceptance of constraint inexchange for security, even though the actualbeneficiaries of that social bargain represent ashrinking proportion of the population.

Yamaguchi’s game-theoretic analysis, which

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explains how the Japanese employment systemdisplays strategic rationality at the expense ofgeneral economic rationality, is broadlyconsistent with feminist critiques of statefeminism over the past three decades. AyakoKano’s account of feminist debates concerningthe Equal Employment Opportunity Law(EEOL) shows how the el imination ofpaternalistic “protections” in the name ofequality enabled more women to join theworkforce, but the law was still heavilycriticized by both liberal and radical feministsfor caving in to business interests. “The issue ofworkplace equality was left to the discretion ofemployers, who simply created a two-tracksystem—one that subverted the intent of thelaw and ensured that most women wouldremain in secondary posit ions in theworkplace.”17 This system assigned the majorityof men to the managerial career track (sōgōshoku) even if they lacked college education,and the majority of women, including collegegraduates, to the clerical career track (ippanshoku).

Stephanie Assmann argues that “the EEOL hasalways been a guideline for private companiesrather than a policy enforced by law. …Japanese companies have regularly evaded theEEOL by establishing a dual career track …system [which] continues to be practiced tomaintain gender-specific employmentconditions, without openly declaring a genderbias.” She observes that the revised version ofthe EEOL in 2006/07, which forbids indirectdiscrimination, challenges the dual tracksystem by further constraining the conditionsfor hiring and promotion. Nevertheless, thosechanges were implemented in the context ofderegulation of the labour market, whichlimited progress against discrimination due tothe rising tide of irregular and part-timeemployment.18 The growing prevalence ofirregular employment may have also bluntedthe economic benefits of the 1999 Basic Lawfor a Gender Equal Society and the subsequentfive-year Basic Plans for Gender Equality,

which set out specific numerical targets anddeadlines (including several for 2020) as wellas the promotion of work/life balance, child-rearing support and the development ofpolicies to implement international standards.Economic insecurity no doubt contributed tosome of the backlash against state feministinitiatives from about 2000 to 2006, much of itled by none other than Abe Shinzō.19

Indeed, certain aspects of sexual discriminationin the workplace may have increased duringand after Japan’s Great Recession of the 1990s,notwithstanding the legislative advances duringthat period. Yamaguchi points out that in thepast three decades, Japanese firms respondedto recession and slower growth by replacingregular employment with non-regularemployment through ret irement and“restructuring”, thereby attempting to secureeconomic rent by keeping the wages of non-regular workers lower than their productivity.Consequently, the labour share of nationalincome declined and corporations experienceda temporary improvement in their operatingprofits. Because this defensive measure did notraise productivity, though, and in fact left mosttraditional regular employment practicesuntouched, it actually gave rise to a new formof discrimination against women: “givingpriority to men in new-graduate regularemployment, unlike during the period of rapideconomic growth when new graduates couldfind regular employment regardless ofgender.”20 But after the economic slowdown,more women could be slotted into the non-regular and ippan shoku (regular, clerical)positions exempt from long working hours. Atleast this development gave Prime Minister Abesomething to brag about until the COVID-19crisis hit: a temporary boost in femaleemployment.

Beyond Tokenism? Recent Legislation andits Limited Effects

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The effectiveness of the 2018 Workstyle ReformLaws in providing equal pay for equal work anda labour market more conducive to work/lifebalance is difficult to gauge amidst the massivelayoffs and revocations of informal job offerscaused by the pandemic . Abe bold lypronounced that “[t]hese are the first majorreforms [to labour laws] in 70 years. We willrectify the problems of working long hours anderadicate the expression ‘non-regularemployment’ from Japan.”21 Yet, as economistNaohiro Yashiro has pointed out, the formalprohibition against discrimination betweenregular and non-regular workers does notaffect the large wage gap attributable toseniority-based pay, since employers are onlyobliged to pay equal wages to regular workersand non-regular workers with the same lengthof work experience at the same firm. “It de-facto rationalises the current wage gap mainlybased on the seniority wage of regularworkers.”22 Moreover, the amendmentsenacted to improve pay and employmentconditions for non-regular workers still do notexplicitly refer to equality between men andwomen, and do not carry stiff penalties, butmerely require employers to explain thereasons for any differences upon an employee’srequest. This is consistent with the soft law‘comply or explain’ approach favoured by boththe corporate sector and the governing LiberalDemocratic Party (LDP).

Yamaguchi’s analysis of the ‘gender wage gap’by a combination of employment types (fourcategories distinguishing regular versus non-regular employment and full-time versus part-time work) shows that gender differences inemployment type explain only 36 percent of thegap.23 In fact, the primary factor is the wagedif ferential within ful l - t ime regularemployment. “The elimination of the genderwage gap among regular workers is therefore amore press ing i ssue than f ix ing theoverrepresentation of women in non-regularemployment.”24 A major cause of this disparityis the small percentage of female managers in

Japan. According to the 2017 Annual Report ofthe Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare,25

women hold just 6.6% of senior managementpositions (department director or higher); 9.3%of middle management (section heads); and18.6% of lower management (e.g., task unitsupervisor) positions.

Even more remarkab le i s how muchYamaguchi’s research findings contradictemployers’ stated reasons for not promotingmore women. The two major reasons given bypersonnel officers in surveys are (1) “at themoment, there are no women who have thenecessary knowledge, experience, or judgmentcapability”, and (2) “women retire beforeattaining managerial positions due to theirshort years of service.”26 His analysis of firmswith 100 or more employees shows that only 21percent of the gender disparity among regularworkers in middle management (section heads)and above could be explained by genderdifferences in education and employmentexperience. In fact, “the proportion ofmanagers among female college graduates isfar lower than that among male high schoolgraduates, for any given number of years ofemployment for the current employer.”27 In all,about 60% of the wage gap remains even aftereducational attainment, age, employmentduration and working hours have all beenequalized.28 The rest of the disparity arisesfrom gender differences in the rate ofpromotion to managerial positions amongemployees with the same levels of educationand experience. (Hence the proportion ofsection head positions that women attain onaverage after 26–30 years of employment isattained by men within 5 years.) Yamaguchisurmises that the major underlying cause ofgender inequality stems from the Japaneseemployment practice of promotion based uponseniority combined with indirect discriminationagainst women through firms’ internal trackingsystems. This pract ice of stat ist icaldiscrimination based upon the putativeprobability of temporary job-quitting becomes a

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self-fulfilling prophecy, since women often quittheir jobs when raising children due to theirsmaller chance of developing their careers intheir firms.29 Given the wider influence ofcorporate/salaryman culture in Japanesesociety, it is not surprising to find that thispattern extends beyond the corporation to theprofessions as well: for example, the now-discredited practice at Tokyo MedicalUniversity (and probably several other privateuniversities) of making deductions fromentrance exam scores for more than 10 years tocurb the enrollment of women.

This issue is deeply structural and highlyresistant to ordinary incremental inducementsand exhortations. That is why Yamaguchiadvocates broadening the definition of indirectdiscrimination in Japan’s Equal EmploymentOpportunity Law:

In order to break through this presentsituation, the definition of indirectdiscrimination in Japan must be changedto comply with international standards,including, as discriminatory practices,institutions that have a disparate impacton the minority, rather than onlyinstitutions that are discriminatory inintention. In particular, an essentialrequirement for gender equality ofopportunity will be to prohibit by lawinternal tracking systems such as thedistinction between the managerial careertrack and the clerical career track, whichis very strongly associated with theemployee’s gender, as an institution ofindirect discrimination.30

Such proposals, though, run counter to thegeneral policy ethos of deregulation. After not asingle Japanese company took up the Ministryof Labour’s offer in April 2014 of between150,000 and 300,000 yen apiece to train and

promote women to supervisory roles, thegovernment’s Gender Equality Bureau reducedthe target for female section heads inbusinesses to just 15%. In June 2020, it wasannounced that the 30% target would bedelayed for up to a decade. More importantly,there was still no indication that the new targetwould be mandatory or carry stiff penalties ifnot achieved. At present, only 4% of Japanesecorporate board members are female, eventhough the stated goal for 2020 was 10% (mostAmerican and European companies are alreadyover 20%). The government simply delayed thegoal, with an additional promise “to aim for asociety where men and women alike are inleadership positions" by 2050.31

Osawa Machiko, a labour economist at JapanWomen’s University, states that the problemwill not be solved until Japan “develops a moreliquid job market that would allow women tothreaten to take their ski l ls to otherorganisat ions .” 3 2 Her analys is , l ikeYamaguchi’s, is consistent with a recent OECDstudy recommending the labour marketreforms that are needed in order to enableJapan to better utilize its human capital.33 All ofthese experts agree that breaking down labourmarket dualism is crucial to expandingemployment opportunities for women and olderpeople, while reducing income inequality andrelative poverty. This need not mean jettisoningthe Japanese sys tem in i t s ent i re ty(Macnaughton, for example holds out hope that“core Japanese elements such as corporateloyalty and citizenship, commitment toinvestment in employee training and careers,and a priority for employee security beforecorporate prof its can be extended toencompass female and non-regu laremployees”), but it does mean confronting thefundamental logic of seniority, tenure,collective bonuses, sōgō shoku/ippan shoku,and other aspects of the Japanese corporationthat serve to reproduce gender inequality.

The rigidity and entrenchment of the system is

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why the gap between promise and performanceis so pronounced in the area of parental leave.Japan’s generous Child Care and Family LeaveLaw has been in place since 2009 and childcareleave benefits have recently been increasedfrom 50% to 67% of parents’ existing salary forthe first six months of leave, and 50%thereafter for up to a year. Japan even has thelongest paid-leave for fathers in the world, 30.4weeks, according to a 2019 UNICEF Report.34

The difficulty is that very few fathers use it.According to data compiled in the Ministry ofHealth, Labour and Welfare Basic Survey ofGender Equality in Employment Managementfor fiscal 2019, only 7.48 percent of eligiblemen used childcare leave.35 (By comparison,62% of eligible German fathers and 70% ofSwedish fathers took at least two months ofpaternity leave in 2015, for a total uptake ofthe legally available leave of 30% and 45%respectively.36) Japan has experienced a steadyincremental increase since 2011, but the figureremains far below the government target of13% of fathers by 2020 and 30% by 2025. Thelatter objective is unlikely to be achieved, butnot because they are not interested. A 2017Japanese government-commissioned studyfound that 35% of new fathers wanted to takepaternity leave but did not because they fearedthe repercussions for status and promotion.37

Although there continues to be incrementalprogress in the development o f newlegislation,38the persistent under-utilization ofpaternity leave in the face of both legislatedincentives and popular support for the policysuggests that there exists not just a culturallag, but a collective-action problem: i.e. asituation in which individual rationality makesa collectively rational outcome impossible toachieve.39 As such, mandatory paternity leavemay be necessary in order to break theimpasse. It would remove at a stroke theproblem of intra-company competitiondeterring the use of parental leave, as well asthe problem of inter-company competitionpressuring managers to punish leave-takers.

Such a proposal does not appear to beunacceptably radical for Japan, because in June2019 50 Diet members, including 11 formerCabinet ministers, supported the idea.40

The expenditure of nearly 2 trillion yen in the2017 budget to expand the scope of freeeducation and childcare services, along withincreasing childcare leave benefits and thereform of the dependent spouse tax deduction(which had discouraged women from enteringthe labour force by giving a tax benefit tomarried couples if a spouse — in most cases thewife — earned less than a certain amount) aremore than just token measures. So are some ofthe revisions to Japan's labor laws. As of April1, 2019 large firms (defined as firms with 300or more employees) were required by theaforementioned Workstyle Reform Law tocomply with a new overtime Basic Limit of 45hours per month and 360 hours per year,although under “special circumstances” thiscan be extended to 100 hours per month and720 hours per year.41 It also carries a penaltyfor non-compliance with the new overtime rulesthat may include imprisonment for up to sixmonths or fines of up to 300,000 Yen. Althoughit is not clear how much this directly affectswomen, given their small presence in theregular workforce, it does strike a blow againstthe prevalent ‘more is always better’ attitudetoward male working hours.

Nevertheless, these measures reflect a narrow,compartmentalized strategy that is tailored toimpose minimal restraint upon business. Theymay not be sufficient to engineer the kind ofrapid structural, cultural, and societaltransformation that many commentators feel isneeded when the fertility rate in 2020 remainsstuck at 1.369 births per woman (replacementrate is 2.1 per woman), and the cost of femalesnot participating in the workforce on an equalbasis with males is estimated by GoldmanSachs to be almost 13% of GDP.42

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Supportive Social Policy and IncreasedImmigration as Policy Alternatives

The reluctance of Japan’s political elites toadopt a more comprehensive and aggressiveapproach is more baffling considering theirresistance to mass immigration, which is theonly feasible policy alternative to Womenomicsfor stemming the effects of demographicdecline. The United Nations estimated in 2009that Japan would need 650,000 immigrants peryear to stabilize the nation’s population (theactual number of net immigrants in 2019 was165,000). Although the majority of Japanesepeople surveyed are not opposed to graduallyincreasing immigration to meet labourshortages, there is official opposition tocreating a large, permanent immigrantcommunity.43 One reason for this is thedifficulty that was experienced in integratingthe 370,000 nikkeijin (ethnic Japanese born inBrazil and Latin America) between 1990 and2010. That policy failure suggested thatunfamiliarity with the Japanese language andculture presents a serious obstacle to relianceupon immigration as the primary policyinstrument for solving Japan’s demographicdilemmas.44

Japan therefore needs to ask how seriously ittakes, or ever took, the goal of raising itsfertility rate from under 1.4 to 1.8 by 2025.France furnishes perhaps the most relevantinternational comparison because i tsuccessfully used public policy to raise itsfertility rate from 1.7 to nearly 1.9 in just 10years between 1993 and 2003. The Frenchbegan precisely where conservative Japan hasthus far feared to tread: by taking the broadest,most liberal definition of family possible, toinclude unwed couples, adoptions, same-sexcouples, and single parents. French maternityleave (fully paid for sixteen weeks per child forthe first two children and twenty-six weeks inthe case of a third child, with an additionalmonthly stipend that rises with the number ofchildren) can be split with partners, with an

additional eleven days of paternity leavereserved exclusively for fathers. A mother canalso take an additional two and a half yearswithout pay, with a guaranteed right of returnto her job (up to five years leave if there ismore than one child). French law requires thatat least 40 percent of directors be women (ornot fewer than the number of men minus twofor smal ler corporat ions) . Yet Japanpurportedly seeks to raise its fertility rate twiceas much as France by doing considerably less.Moreover, France’s current fertility rate of 1.85births per woman is due to French-bornmothers giving birth at a rate of about 1.75,plus the contribution made by immigrantmothers, who in 2017 averaged 0.8 more (alltold, immigrant mothers contributed 18–19% ofFrench births in 2017).45 Japan’s reluctance togreatly increase its levels of immigration meansthat it is even more reliant than France is uponits domestic fertility rate, making its task thatmuch more difficult.

Although the number of children waiting toenter authorized daycare facilities in Japan asof April 2019 was the lowest (16,772) it hadbeen since records started in 1994, newdemands arising from the advent of freedaycare for children up to the age of two fromlow income households, coupled with a growingshortage of childcare workers eating into theprofitability of private preschools and daycarecenters, means that the goal of eliminatingwaiting lists remains elusive.46 To achieve itsambitious goals for both increasing femalelabour participation and raising birth rates,however, Japan should probably take a pagefrom Scandinavia and the Netherlands and notjust from France. That is: it should supplementthese social policy supports with policies thattake more direct aim at gender equality andlabour market flexibility across different jobcategories.

There is also more that can be done in otherareas of family law and social policy, such asproviding more support for (or at least fewer

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impediments to) single parents, unmarriedparents and gay couples who may wish to raisefamilies. Opposition parties submitted a bill in2019 that proposed legalizing same-sexmarriage, but the Abe government declined todebate it, on the grounds that same-sexmarriage is prohibited by Article 24 of theConstitution, which states that “marriage shallbe based only on the mutual consent of bothsexes.” That conservative interpretation ofArticle 24 is currently being challenged in thecourts, and the Japanese Bar Association hasrecommended that Article 24 be interpreted soas to not deny the Article 14 guarantee ofEquality.47 The first judgement in this case isexpected in the Sapporo District Court on 17March 2021.Some prefectures have issuedpartnership certificates to same-sex couples,48

a n d t h e t r e n d i n p u b l i c o p i n i o n i sunmistakeable: according to a poll carried outby Dentsu in October 2018, 78.4% of Japanesepeople under the age of 60 were in favour ofsame-sex marriage.49 It is telling however thatthe national government is more of a hindrancethan a help to recognizing non-traditionalfamily structures, notwithstanding itsostensible commitment to promoting adoptionsand to facilitating the careers of all women andcouples who decide to raise children.50

Tokenism in the Political Arena: GenderInequality and the LDP

Abe Shinzō acknowledged the need tocomplement efforts to promote femalemanagers in the private sector with those toencourage both elected and non-electedofficials in the public sector. Nevertheless, hisgovernment managed to avoid several keyopportunities to break the glass ceiling at thehighest reaches of government. First, the issueof female succession to the Throne of Japan:the existing Imperial House Law of 1947remains a clear affirmation of patriarchy andpatriliny in a country that needs just the

opposite.51 Second, Abe allowed the number ofwomen in his Cabinet to slide from seven in2014, just after Womenomics was announced,to just two in 2020, a number maintained by hissuccessor, PM Suga Yoshihide. Third, the lackof female representation in the Diet: Japan’selectoral system allows for 176 members of theHouse of Representatives and 96 members ofthe House of Councillors to be elected fromparty lists in accordance with proportionalrepresentation (PR). In most countries with aPR-element in their electoral system, politicalparties use PR-l ists in multi -memberconstituencies in order to enhance and ensurefemale and minority representation. EmmaDalton’s work describes how the replacementof the multi-member Single Non-TransferrableVote with the mixed-member plurality systemin the electoral reform of 1994 raised hopes fora similar breakthrough in Japan, which did notmaterialize due to a series of moves by LDPpoliticians calculated to defuse its radicalpotential. One aspect of this was the steadyreduction in the number of PR seats (from one-half or 250 in the original proposal of theHosokawa government, to 226 in thecompromise negotiated by Hosokawa with theLDP in November 1993; to the 200 PR electedin 11 regional blocs that was included in the1994 law and used in the 1996 generalelection, to 176 out of 480 seats used in the2000 general election and afterwards).Arguably even more important was a provisionin the 1994 law allowing dual candidaciesacross the two electoral segments (the“zombie” clause), which protected the careersof incumbents and thus greatly reducedopportunities for women. Most parties, inparticular the LDP, resisted calls for quotas.Some campaign finance reforms limited thepower of private money and provided somemodest government funding of parties, butthese measures had only modest effect, withfemale representation in the Diet rising from2.7% in 1993 to just 7.3% in 2000, and thenlevelling off.52

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The political reforms of 1994 also gave the PMincreased powers in order to curb the cost andfrequency of elections and to reduce the scopefor local pork-barrel politics, corruption andfactionalism. These powers helped Abe toachieve a more cohesive cabinet, greaterpolitical stability and to eventually become, in2019, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.He was also able to overcome the veto power ofthe agricultural lobby and other domesticconstraints in order to become a leader on freetrade in the wake of President Trump’swithdrawal of the US from the Trans-PacificPartnership. Nevertheless, he allowed the LDPto repeatedly water down a multi-party billaimed at promoting the recruitment of femalecandidates. Why was the law eventuallyadopted in 2018 calling for parties to “aim for”balanced gender representation amongcandidates in elections not made binding, atleast with respect to the PR-list seats? As ithappens, in the first local elections held underthe new law in April 2019, a record six out of59 mayoral races were won by women. Inprefectural assembly elections, womenconstituted 12.7 percent of candidates, winning10.4 percent of those seats. This was a slightincrease over the 9.1 percent of prefecturalassembly seats that went to women in 2015. Inthe July 2019 Upper House election, thepercentage of female candidates rose from 24.7percent in the 2016 election to 28.1 percent,winning 28 out of the 124 seats (22.5 percent).These numbers were all modest improvements,but they could have been significantly better ifthe candidate lists in multi-member districtsused for proportional elections had beengender-balanced to begin with. It was alsotelling that only 15 percent of LDP candidateswere women, compared with 45 percent fortheir main opponents, the ConstitutionalDemocratic Party (CDP).53 Qualitative researchconfirms the continuing prevalence of apatriarchal party culture in the LDP, includingthe norms internalized by LDP womenthemselves.54

These missed opportunities reflect both thegovernment ’s narrow concept ion ofWomenomics as simply part of an economicgrowth strategy, and the social conservatism ofAbe and many leading members of the LDP.The short-term success of the first two arrowsof Abenomics (monetary easing and fiscalstimulus) meant that between 2012 and 2019the government had been able to postpone oravoid actions that were less politically popularamong its core constituencies. As Jeff Kingstonobserves, “Abe’s ‘Three Arrows’ strategysuffers because the third arrow of structuralreforms remains in the quiver. …[F]inancialmarkets rejoiced that the Bank of Japan wasu n d e r w r i t i n g g u a r a n t e e d s t o c kgains…[while]increased government spendingon public works projects…helps constructioncompanies and generates jobs in rural areaswhere longstanding LDP activists reside.”55 Nocomparable const i tuency ex is ts forWomenomics, which is basically a public good.The lack of a strong centre-left Oppositionparty after the implosion of the DemocraticParty of Japan (DPJ) in 2012 has meant thatthere is no longer an alternative government-in-waiting to compete on the basis of a moreprogressive program. This power vacuum hasundoubtedly boosted the relative influence ofthe Nippon Kaigi (the “Japan Conference”), theconservative right-wing organization thatincluded Abe and most of his Cabinet.(Although Nippon Kaigi has also included someimportant female leaders, such as formerdefense minister Inada Tomomi, it is hardlyknown for promoting feminist policies.)56

During the campaign to secure the successionof Abe as President of the LDP, neither theeventual winner, now Prime Minister Suga, northe other leading candidates (Ishiba Shigeruand Kishida Fumio) proposed to do more than“push for female hiring targets and moreprogress on child-care provision.”57

Womenomics and Business

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Members of the business elite, upon whom theLDP rely heavily for advice and support, arealso complicit in this policy drift. In 2017,Keidanren agreed to foot 300 billion yen (US$2.7 billion) of the 2 trillion yen daycare andeducation initiative of the government, to bepaid in the form of employer contributionsunder the employee pension insurancesystem.58 Japan still, however, lacks an officialevaluation system to check the daily operationsof nursery facilities, and suffers from low payfor qualified daycare workers, resulting in anacute labour shortage. Lack of regulation andcheap labour may prove attractive to foreigncompanies looking to open private daycarecentres,59 but they also arguably neglect thequality of educational and daycare services,which is what matters most to working parents.

Capital markets also stepped up to the plate, aswhen, in 2018, the Corporate Governance Codeset out by the Tokyo Stock Exchange and theFinancial Services Agency was revised tostipulate that at least one female boardmember was “expected” to be in position atevery listed company. Nikkei Asia reported inDecember 2020 that “[c]ompanies in Japan willbe encouraged to set voluntary targets forfemale and foreign managers and provideinformation on their progress under a revisedcorporate governance code due out in thespring of 2021.”60 Kathy Matsui, reflecting in2019 upon the progress of Womenomics overthe previous two decades, expressed ameasured satisfaction that it had “helped shiftcorporate managers’ and societal attitudes tothe critical role gender diversity can play indriving growth” and “while Japan is still farfrom reaching its targets on female leadershiprepresentation, headway has been made inother areas.” Matsui recommends that Japanconsider temporary quotas for the JapaneseDiet, but–despite reiterating the stakes, interms of implications for productivity, economicgrowth, and standards of living, of genderinequality and depopulation—does notrecommend stronger regulation of the private

sector.61

That is because ‘Womenomics’ keeps bumpinginto another glass ceiling: the need to coherewith the other “Arrows” of Abenomics and withbusiness imperatives. Goldman Sachs,Ke idranen and other bus iness e l i teorganisations are committed to a generalstrategy of deregulation, privatization, andother market-oriented policies to maximizegrowth. Lobbyists have successfully persuadedthe government to follow a neoliberalprescription that preserves managerialautonomy,6 2 a shift to more regressiveexpenditure taxes, and deregulation. Theselobbyists and advisers in the private sectorhave not, however, been inclined to advocatequotas for hiring and board representation, abroader definition and stronger regulation ofindirect discrimination in the workplace, higherminimum wages, or mandatory paternity leave.

Conclusion: Womenomics and the Limits ofNeoliberal Reform

It is undeniable that the last three years of theAbe government in Japan saw a move beyondmere tokenism and symbolism in certain keypolicy areas relating to Womenomics. Theinvestments in daycare, parental leave, and thecap on working hours are significant, if notexactly transformational. The long-criticizedceiling for the spousal tax deduction was finallyraised from 1.03 million yen to 1.5 million yen,encouraging more women to work—althoughout of political sensitivity to many women whoare still full-time homemakers, the taxdeduction framework remains firmly in place.63

The new Prime Minister, Suga Yoshihide, statesthat he is committed to giving renewedmomentum to the 'third arrow' of structuralreform, including labour market reforms thatwould promote gender equity.64

Nevertheless, these recent innovations do not

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fundamentally alter the validity of HelenMacnaughtan’s conclusion that the systemcontinues to serve the “ideal of core regularmale employment,” and that until that model isdismantled, genuine progress for both men andwomen will be impossible to achieve. Nor havethey disproven Jeff Kingston’s prediction in2014 of “a muddling-through scenario of crisis-averting half-measures” by the Abe governmentin response to the growing needs of theprecariat, women, youths, and immigrants. Thecase has not been convincingly made thatcontinued incrementalism, with heavy relianceupon voluntary targets and disclosurerequirements, is sufficient to achieve thedramatic change that Japan needs. It is stillrational for too many employers to bet againstwomen staying in the workforce to the sameextent as men; for fathers to not take the fullpaternity leave to which they are entitled; andfor women to not attempt to combine ambitiouscareers suited to their talents with the raisingof families. The complaint from corporationsthat not enough female talent was in thepipeline to meet the 2020 hiring targets formanagers was the self-fulfilled prophecy of adiscriminatory dual track career system. In theface of such an entrenched system of genderinequality, to base one’s optimism on the ideathat the “critical tailwinds” of social investmentand generational culture change will serve toblow Japan across the finish line65 is to miss thehistorical lesson that it was determinedpolitical leadership that once fashioned “JapanInc.” This may be needed again to forge a moreinclusive and egalitarian political economy thatfits 21st century realities.

The paradox of the Abe-era reforms is howextensive legislation and publicity efforts tochange the system nonetheless tiptoed very

carefully around the same political coalitionsbetween conservative policymakers, politicians,large firms, and core regular workers thatconsolidated labor market dualism andinequality during Japan’s protracted recessionof the 1990s and 2000s. By not offending thesekey constituencies, the LDP may havemaintained its grip on power, but in so doingmay have jeopardized Japan’s long-term growthand progress. In contrast, by reducing thedistinctions between regular and non-regularemployment; prohibiting internal trackingsystems that have highly gendered effects;making targets for female managers and Boardappointments mandatory; making paternityleave compulsory; reserving half of the Diet’sPR-list seats for female candidates; andstrongly supporting parents regardless of theirgender, sexual orientation or marital status,Suga could break some of the vicious circlesthat prevented Abe’s government fromreach ing i t s s ta ted goa l s . To makeWomenomics work, Japanese neoliberalismmust bend to the requirements of genderequality, and not just the other way around.

Related articles

Stephanie Assmann, Gender Equality inJapan : The Equa l Emp loymentOpportunity Law RevisitedJeff Kingston, PM Abe’s FlounderingPandemic Leadership Helen Macnaughtan, Womenomics forJapan: is the Abe policy for genderedemployment viable in an era of precarity?Sachie Mizohata, Nippon Kaigi: Empire,Contradiction and Japan’s Future

Mark Crawford is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Athabasca University inAlberta, Canada. He specializes in Canadian and Comparative Politics and spent his mostrecent research sabbatical in 2020 in Okayama, Japan.

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Notes1 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 LawRevisited,” 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 TowardGender Equality: State Feminism in Japan. New York: Routledge, 2004. Pp.139-171.11 Helen Macnaughtan, "Womenomics for Japan: is the Abe policy for gendered employmentviable 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 inJapan: A Story of Mainstreaming and Backlash,” Feminist Studies 40, no.3, 2014. Pp.541-572.20 Yamaguchi. op.cit. Sect. 1.2.221 “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 AsiaForum, November 8, 2019.23 Kazuo Yamaguchi . “Japan’s Gender Gap”, Finance & Development, vol.56 no.1, March2019, pp.26-29 at p.27.24 Ibid.25 https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/wp/wp-hw11/index.html.

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26 Kazuo Yamaguchi 2016. “Determinants of the Gender Gap in the Proportion of Managersamong 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 promotionin 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 shrinkingand ageing population," OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 1568, OECDPublishing, 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 EmploymentManagement for fiscal 2019.. July 31, 2020.36 Janna Van Belle. “Paternity and parental leave policies across the European Union.” RANDResearch Reports.37 Motoko Rich. “Men in Japan Claim They Paid Dearly for Taking Paternity Leave.” New YorkTimes, Sept. 13, 2019, Section A, P. 4.38 In September 2020, a subcommittee of the Labour Policy Council, which advises Japan’sMinister of Health, Labour and Welfare, announced that it was considering a new paternityleave program: . There is also encouraging news that most prospective fathers in Japan’spublic 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 slightchanges 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 officialsinvoke anti-immigration public opinion to justify their desired policy goal,” both because it israre for the government to be deferential to public opinion, and because polling dataindicates that public opinion is not as staunchly anti-immigrant as is often supposed.Kingston, “Demographic dilemmas, women and immigration.” Kingston, ed. Critical Issues inContemporary 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.”

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Japan Times, September 6, 2019.47 Magdalena Osumi. “In a first, LGBT couples sue Japan over constitutionality of notrecognizing 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 apolicy that lies somewhere between the diverging paths of extensive state involvement inadoptions [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 adoptionin 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'swomen.” 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 SachieMizohata. “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 tomaterialize 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 someforeign firms.”60 Mari Ishibashi and Ryosuke Eguchi, “Japan governance code to urge hiring targets forwomen 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 workingfull time.” Japan Times March 5, 2019.64 Ryushiro Kodaira . “Can Suga replicate success of maverick reformer Koizumi?” Nikkei AsiaSeptember 22, 2020. One encouraging sign in this direction is that Suga also alreadypromised to make infertility treatment eligible for coverage by national health insurance.65 Matsui. 2019. Op.Cit,. P.160.