Japan's Gender Gap Challenges and Innovative Responses
- 9 October 2023
- 12:00pm – 1:00pm
- Online
- https://dajf.org.uk/event/japans-gender-gap-challenges-and-innovative-responses
- +44 (0)20 7486 4348
- events@dajf.org.uk
- Tweet
Japan’s progress in closing its gender gap continues to lag despite government attempts in recent years to promote the economic activity of women. According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report (for 2023), Japan ranked 125th out of 146 countries, its worst result since the report started in 2006. More specifically, women’s participation in politics is remarkably low.
While Prime Minister Kishida included five female ministers in his most recent cabinet in September 2023, he did not nominate a single woman among the 26 senior vice ministers and 28 parliamentary secretaries. This was the first time no women were included since the current vice minister/parliamentary secretary system started in 2001, and resulted in some harsh criticism, even from within the Liberal Democratic Party itself.
In this webinar, moderated by Linda Yueh, Professor Miura will explain the current situation of the gender gap in Japan (including differences by Prefecture), the challenges, and some proposals for innovative policy responses.
About the contributors
Mari Miura
Mari Miura is Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Sophia University. Co-founder of the “Academy for Gender Parity,” which provides training programs for young women to run for office. Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. Author of Welfare Through Work: Conservative Ideas, Partisan Dynamics, and Social Protection in Japan (Cornell University Press, 2012), Farewell to Male-dominated Politics (in Japanese, Iwanami Shinsho, 2023), Making Our Voices Heard—Revival of Representative Democracy (in Japanese, Iwanami Shoten, 2015), editor of Japan’s Women Representatives (in Japanese, Asahi Shimbun Shuppansha, 2016), co-editor of Gender Quotas in Comparative Perspectives: Understanding the Increase in Women Representatives (in Japanese, Akashi Shoten, 2014). She received the Wilma Rule Award (IPSA Award for the Best Research on Gender and Politics) in 2018 and was decorated the Knight of the Order of Merit from the French government in 2021.
Linda Yueh (moderator)
Linda Yueh is fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, and adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. She is an Associate Fellow (U.S. and the Americas Programme) at Chatham House and was awarded CBE for Services to Economics in the 2023 New Year Honours List. She is also visiting professor at LSE IDEAS and chair of the LSE Economic Diplomacy Commission. She is widely published and is editor of the Routledge Series on Economic Growth and Development. Her book The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today was The Times’s Best Business Books of the Year, and Newsweek magazine’s Best Books of the Year. Her latest book The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them, can be purchased here.
