Shigeru Ishiba, Japan’s new Prime Minister, assumed office on October 1st. However, he has already come under scrutiny for his cabinet appointments. On his first day in office, he appointed only two women to his twenty-member cabinet, which previously had five women.
The two women he appointed are Junko Mihara, who will take charge of children’s policies, and Toshiko Abe, who will oversee education.
This came as a surprise, as a quarter of the previous cabinet had been women, importantly the role of foreign minister. Moreover, this number of women matched a record that was reached in 2001 and 2014. Japan has only had three women as foreign ministers but neither a female prime minister or finance minister. This highlights the shocking disparities between genders still in Japan, despite a commitment made by Japan’s ruling party to increase the number of female lawmakers in the next decade from 10% to 30%.
The country’s female representation is the lowest among G7 advanced economies and was ranked 118 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 gender gap report. Furthermore, in 2023, Japan sent a male representative to a meeting on women’s empowerment, which was in stark contrast to its G7 counterparts, who had all sent women.
Asia Programme Officer at Human Rights Watch, Teppei Kasai, highlighted his concern stating “Going from five women cabinet members, which was already extremely low, to two, is a reflection of just how far Japan has to go in terms of women empowerment and equality”.
Despite the glaring underrepresentation of women in Japanese politics, Ishiba’s opponent, Sanae Takaichi, the first female to run for prime minister, highlights the representation of women may be steadily increasing. This was a massive milestone in Japan’s history and hopefully will encourage a new generation of women, and incite change. Furthermore, Japan moved up 7 places in the World Economic Forum gender report, again highlighting there may be a steady increase.
Ishiba has also pledged to introduce a law that allows married women to keep their maiden names, sparking hope he may push ahead with more progressive laws that promote gender equality. Moreover, he has still shown commitment attempting to reach 30% of women lawmakers by taking steps such as offering babysitting arrangements and a separate fund that would support female candidates. The newly-appointed election chief Shinjiro Koizumi was questioned at a press conference about how the party would implement and tackle this, to which he responded they would “resolutely push on”. Critics have questioned what this means with the lack of elaboration.
Japan, historically, has come under scrutiny for their gendered differences and inequalities and is often in the limelight for this. In 2018 the IMF Finance and Development reported Japan’s gender wage gap at 24.5%. This is the second largest among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. Furthermore, they are often criticised for their gender roles, including strong traditions of women being housewives after marriage, and those who pick up part-time or low-paying jobs do so based on their husbands’ schedules.