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Asia Minute: Japan’s Gender Equality Problems

Chalky Lives / Flickr
Chalky Lives / Flickr

Women make up half of Hawai‘i’s congressional delegation and about a third of the state legislature. Both figures are higher than national averages. And a new report from Japan shows that country continues to lag when it comes to women in government as well as leadership positions in the private sector. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.

Every year, Japan’s government produces a White Paper on Gender Equality, and every year there seems to be very little movement.  The government’s been producing these documents now for 18 years in a row.  And yet The World Economic Forum ranks Japan as number 104 out of 142 countries when it comes to overall gender equality…even lower when it comes to women in parliament and in positions of corporate leadership.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised to do more to empower women, but results have been slow to develop.  For example, this year’s just-released White Paper shows a little more than 3% of department chiefs at government ministries are women.

In the private sector, female managers make up about 8-percent of those at the level of department chiefs or higher.  The report cites a number of familiar reasons for the imbalance—ranging from a lack of available childcare to a lack of role models for women.  Abe wants to increase the ratio of women in leadership positions in every field to 30% by the year 2020….a goal that currently looks elusive at best.

Bill Dorman has been the news director at Hawaiʻi Public Radio since 2011.
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