Japan's ‘Womenomics' Push Ages Terribly As Economy Struggles

Forbes

19-07-2025

Pedestrians cross a road in Tokyo, Japan. Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg
Sometimes, it's the pressing election issues that no one is talking about that matter most. Especially when the omission is by design — like the role of women in Japan's economy.
I'm as bummed as anyone to have to point this out 12-plus years on since the Liberal Democratic Party returned to power pledging to prioritize gender equality. What was it that then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to do for half of Japan's population? Make them 'shine.'
In December 2012, the late Abe propelled the LDP back to power with a bold-sounding revival plan. Never mind that it was merely a list of things Japan should've done years earlier. It's better to be late to cut bureaucracy, modernize labor markets, increase productivity and reanimate Japan's innovative animal spirits than never to act.
A key strategy to achieve those last two goals was empowering women. All available research shows that nations and companies that best utilize their female workforces are the most vibrant, efficient and prosperous. Any report from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank or investment banks like Goldman Sachs will attest to that.
It's no coincidence that the LDP called their plan 'womenomics.' The word is believed to have been coined by then-Goldman Sachs economist Kathy Matsui, whose gender research made her a local celebrity. Abe cited her work when he pledged to increase the role of women in business and politics.
Sadly, though, such talk ended up being a shiny object.
In 2012, Japan ranked 101st in the World Economic Forum's gender equality index. Today, it's 118th out of 148 countries, a 17-place backslide. And Sunday's election offers its own metric on the dimming hopes for gender parity in the third-biggest economy.
In upper house elections, women make up fewer than 30% of candidates. As Jiji Press reported earlier this month, of the 522 people who initially filed candidacies, just 152 were women, or 29.1%. This is shy of the LDP's 35% target for female lawmakers.
In fact, in terms of women holding political office, Japan trails Saudi Arabia by 17 places, according to the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Why is Japan failing to make such an obvious fix to its underperforming economy? After all, Goldman Sachs has long argued, Japan's gross domestic product would increase by as much as 15% if the female labor participation matched that of men.
One reason for the foot-dragging is that the power with Japan's patriarchy is strong. Economic history knows few examples of those with power giving it up willingly. Typically, change is demanded by the masses in ways the ruling class can't ignore. And virtually no one thinks the LDP, which has led Japan with only two brief interruptions since 1955, is going to lose all power on Sunday.
Another problem is that Tokyo establishment is much better at treating the symptoms of a problem than addressing it. Abe was far from the first modern leader to latch onto gender disparities as an election issue. Back in the early 2000s, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also made a play for fielding more female candidates.
But Abe, like Koizumi before him, mostly prodded the Bank of Japan to cut rates to, or near, zero and leave them there indefinitely. As all that free money boosted the economy, there was less urgency to do the hard work of upending the status quo.
Yet the last dozen years have been particularly frustrating. The LDP had broad-based public support to level playing fields and smash glass ceilings. And then it just pivoted to other pursuits, leaving Japan quite the gender-equality outlier in Group of Seven circles.
This has also been a lost period of lawmakers appearing to understand that the lack of progress plays a role in so many of Japan's biggest challenges. Take Japan's demographic trajectory, one that worries global debt investors wary of the developed world's biggest debt burden.
A key reason Japan's birth rate falls year after year to new record lows is Japan Inc.'s poor track record on work-life-balance policies. This has many women delaying childbirth. Then there's the 'informalization' boom that relegates more and more jobs to 'non-regular' status. These gigs pay less, offer less upward mobility and come with less job security. And the vast majority of them go to women.
What does Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba have to say about all this? Not much. How about new ideas to empower half of Japan's 124 million people? Crickets. In fact, one of the most vital repairs Japan needs this election season is among the last things anyone wants to talk about.