February 21 – In the fall of 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made waves by appointing five women to his cabinet, including the first female foreign minister in over two decades. While this is the most female Cabinet members ever, not a single woman was chosen for any of the 54 junior ministerial positions in Kishida’s government.

Last week, Rorry Daniels, Managing Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute led a conversation with ASPI Vice President Wendy Cutler, CEO of the Japan Society Dr. Joshua Walker, and General Counsel for Citi Private Wealth Akiko Yamahara about Japanese “womenomics,” the idea that women’s economic advancement will improve the economy as a whole.

“The thing is that it is very important to have women in senior positions both in the private and public sector. This is an area that Japan does not very well in,” shared Wendy Cutler. “The World Economic Forum (WEF) does annual surveys that analyze gender equality. Japan does really well on the education equality, and that brings their score up, but what really brings them down is the lack of women in the Diet and the cabinet.”

The 2022 WEF report ranked Japan at 116 out of 146 countries, the lowest, by far, of all G-7 nations. Rankings like this have played a role in driving Prime Minister Kishida’s commitment to advancing gender diversity in Japanese society: he has set an ambitious target of achieving 30% representation of women in executive positions within prime-listed companies by 2030.

Competition with their neighbors is also an influencing factor. "Japan wants reform, especially when compared to Korea,” says Dr. Joshua Walker. “They don’t want to be next to Myanmar or all these other countries at the lower level [on the WEF scale] because they know they can do better.”

According to Cutler, Kishida has implemented some progressive reforms that countries like the U.S. could learn from. His government has poured money into daycare facilities across Japan, giving generous paternity and maternity leave, and recently adding financial incentives to women who are having children.

Akiko Yamahara noted that the U.S. can certainly learn from Japan when it comes to childcare: “In Japan, if you had three kids and put them all into nurseries it’s not going to break your bank whereas in the U.S. or in Manhattan, just one child’s fee is astronomical.”

Still, reform cannot just take place at the top and trickle down. Even though Japanese companies have recently made a big effort to put more women on their corporate boards, Cutler noted that it is the same “five or ten women who are on four or five boards.”

“Let’s hold them accountable. [Japan] has got a long way to go from where they are today to Scandanavian standards, so [the question is] how do we help them and create the right incentive structure,” says Dr. Walker.

While Japan has progress to make when it comes to gender equality in the work force, most of the issues discussed are nearly universal. “It’s not like the U.S. is far ahead of Japan in terms of bringing up women. Every time I move to Hong Kong, London, New York, I am surprised by the few number of women at the table,” shared Yamahara.

Listen to the full conversation here.