Gender Disparity In Japan

The lack of children and an increasing number of workers reaching the retiring age will be detrimental to Japan as its total population is forecast to shrink by over 30% from 127mn in 2013 to just 87 mn by 2060, causing its work force is go from a peak of 87 million in the mid-1990s to 55 million by the middle of the 21st century with the proportion of the elderly going from 25% to nearly 40%. The birth rate in Japan has been steadily declining; the birth rate in 2014 was 1.4 children per woman, well below the 2.1needed to ward off a sharp decline in population. The birth rate In fact, Goldman Sachs has stated that Japan is one of the few countries where the number of registered pets (21.3 million) continues to exceed the number of children

Though Japan is the third most developed economy in the world, the World Economic Forum ranked the country 105th out of 136 countries in its recent global gender-gap report, putting it behind countries such as Cameroon and Tajikistan. Women participation in the labor force is at around 62% compared to the 80% participation rate among men. There is also only a 63% employment rate among women compared to the 65% rate among men. However, these numbers do not take into account that a large portion of these women work part time jobs. Moreover, of those women participating in the work force, most work in occupations that do not offer much financial security; women make up 77% or Japan’s part-time and temporary workforce, and only 11% of senior positions and 1% of executive committee memberships in Japanese companies are held by women. There has been a so-called “bamboo ceiling” limiting the careers of women in Japan, coined so due to the “thick, hard, and not even transparent” constraint on the advancement of a woman’s professional development.

Womenomics is part of Abe’s proposed “Abenomics” policies to boost Japan’s economy. With womenomics, Abe hopes to fill 30% of the leadership positions across Japanese society with women by 2020, lift the female labor participation rate, raise the percentage of women returning to work after their first child, boost the supply of childcare facilities with the aim of eliminating children on daycare

Companies in Japan that ranked in the highest quartile on female manager ratios boasted three year average returns on equity above 10% while firms in the lowest quartile had low or negative ROEs. Higher incomes are more likely to translate into more spending. Women control the majority of purchasing decisions globally and within Japan, they account for around 63% of consumer purchases. If more women are working, more women will have more disposable income to spend. Spending increases consumption; this will lead to a shift rightward of the aggregate demand