Representing Japan, Defending Human Rights

When Miyoshi Mari joined the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 as a trainee diplomat she was the only female recruit out of twenty-eight; in 2016, the ministry recruited ten females and eighteen males. So recruitment is not yet equal but there will in future be a much larger number of potential female ambassadors to follow in Miyoshi-san’s footsteps. She was motivated to become a diplomat by an interest in peace and reconciliation, which similarly drew Osa Yukie to study and then become active in international human rights issues. Osa-san has studied indigenous minorities including Japan’s own Ainu but more recently has specialized in the issues of war crimes and genocide.

Creating Art, Interpreting Life

The physicality of calligraphy and of orchestral conducting, and the highly personal and individualistic vision of a film director, connect together the centenarian Shinoda Toko, the Russian-music-admiring conductor, Nishimoto Tomomi, and the woman commissioned to make the official film of the 2020 Olympics, Kawase Naomi. Artists have to be rather quirky individuals, ones who see patterns rather than following them, who pursue passions rather than career tracks. As such, art has provided one of the better ways for Japanese women to fulfil their potentials and make their marks.

A Place Where Women Shine?

Gender inequality lies at the core of Japan’s human capital weakness as well as of its social ailments of declining marriage and low fertility. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo declared his ambition, soon after taking office in late 2012, of achieving much greater female empowerment. Progress has been made, notably in increased childcare provision, but considerable barriers remain. The human capital embodied in Japanese women has improved greatly thanks to the rise in access to university education for female students in the 1990s and 2000s, but this has not yet been translated into leadership roles in part because most organizations use hierarchies ordered strictly by age but also because corporate culture (in the private and public sectors alike) is oriented towards long working hours, enforced socializing, and short-notice job postings, in continued disregard of families and of the now-dominant double-earner households. More women are however fighting back against overt discrimination, the Abe government has introduced a Work-Style Reform Bill to combat long working hours, and more companies are taking the need for diversity seriously. Role models have emerged in a wide range of fields and soon a critical mass of women in decision-making positions will be achieved.

The Tasks Ahead

Superficially Japan looks in good shape, but underneath it has important vulnerabilities. These have entered a gently but remorselessly vicious cycle: while the ageing and shrinking of its population is becoming more entrenched thanks to low marriage and fertility rates, the country’s use of its basic resource, the human capital embodied by a well-educated population, looks stuck in a trap of surprisingly low wages, insecure work and low productivity, which in turn depresses domestic spending and tax revenues while also suppressing marriage and fertility. Gender inequality lies at the heart of all these economic and social trends. The trumpeted reforms of ‘Abenomics’, implemented since Abe Shinzo’s return to the prime ministership in December 2012, have provided monetary and fiscal fuel so as to keep the economic engines running but have so far failed to find transformative solutions for low wages, job insecurity, and low productivity, or for declining marriage rates and low fertility. Solutions are available, if governments and corporations alike can show stronger will and an unambiguous commitment. A twelve-point agenda is proposed, including public policy reforms for the national minimum wage, marriage tax, immigration rules for domestic staff, labour contract law, quotas for political representatives, childcare spending, and university admissions tests; and private actions, for companies and other organizations in the way they manage human-resources policies, paternity leave, early-career experience for female staff, and the future of women-only universities.

Making a Political Impact

In many countries women have made more rapid advances in politics than in other fields, but not in Japan where family dynasties and conservative party rules have slowed their progress. However in the Governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko, and the Mayor of Yokohama, Hayashi Fumiko, are two women who have bucked the trend and are providing inspiration for younger generations. Koike-san came from a successful background in journalism while Hayashi-san was a rare businesswoman in her generation of the 1970s and 1980s, reaching leadership positions in several auto sales firms. Political journalism provided Kuniya Hiroko with her means of making an impact, holding politicians to account on her long-running show on the public broadcaster, NHK, Close Up Gendai.

Leadership in a Male World

In hitherto male-dominated societies, it is hard for female managers to become accepted. Three role models in very different fields show however that it can be done even in Japanese organizations. Kono Naho is the youngest main board member in the e-commerce giant Rakuten and the only female, and recently showed too how she can combine motherhood and management. Higuchi Hiroe is an executive chef running a group of restaurants on the Ise peninsula and cooked for the G7 leaders in 2016; a mother of two sons, she and her husband both started off as chefs but her husband stood aside for her. Terada Chiyono heads a removals firm that has one-quarter of the Japanese house removals market, up from 3 per cent when I first interviewed her in 1986, and has become one of the Kansai region’s most well-known business leaders. All show how a clear vision and sense of purpose, and careful but firm communication, are vital if women are to succeed as leaders.

The Legacy of the Heisei Era, 1989–2019

During the three decades that have passed since Japan’s huge financial crash in 1990, the country has been politically stable and its geopolitical circumstances have barely changed. But it has seen fundamental economic and social changes which have left it vulnerable: the move from a relatively young population to be the world’s oldest society, with total population shrinking every year since 2010; the move from being an economic growth champion to a relative laggard, with slow annual productivity growth; the transformation of the Bank of Japan from being an economic disciplinarian to being the enabler of a huge public debt and financing public spending by printing money; the emergence of a deeply divided, dual labour market in which two-fifths of the workforce are in lowly paid, precarious jobs with little skill development; a decline in the rate of marriage and of fertility; and yet simultaneously a dramatic narrowing of the gender gap in tertiary education as female entry into four-year university courses grew remarkably during the 1990s and 2000s. This leaves Japan with eroding male human capital, increased insecurity, and under-employed female human capital.

Discovering, Developing, Teaching

A common gender stereotype holds that women are less suitable to be scientists than men even though there is no evidence for this proposition. In Japan, a big gender gap in STEM subjects in high school translates into low numbers of female students studying science at university and low admission rates of females to national universities for which all applicants for all degrees are required to sit an exam in science. But role models do exist to encourage the younger generation, and some national universities are trying hard to encourage more female students to study science, technology, and mathematics. Interviews with three role models who took science degrees and went on to successful careers in academia, finance, and consumer electronics, show that barriers are considerable but that they can be overcome. An interview with the president of Nagoya University, Matsuo Seiichi, examines what the university is doing to try to close the gender gap.

Starting Something New

Japanese organizations typically remain not just male-dominated but also organized in male ways. An attractive alternative for women is therefore to start up their own organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit. The Japan Women’s Leadership Initiative takes a group of wannabe social entrepreneurs to Boston, Massachusetts every year to give training and mentorship in how to start and grow a social enterprise. Hayashi Chiaki took her career through marketing and journalism before co-founding her own digital design business, Loftwork, with its affiliate Fabcafes. Mitarai Tamako worked for McKinsey and then the government of Bhutan before moving to the disaster-struck region of Tohoku in 2011 to start up a business with local women making very high-priced and high quality sweaters, with a model reminiscent of the Italian fashion firm Brunello Cuccinelli. Nakamura Noriko, a former TV journalist, set up a babysitting and nanny agency, Poppins, for which one of the fastest growing business lines is providing short-notice childcare for companies and government agencies.

Individuals with a Community Spirit

Japan is a group-oriented, communitarian society but those women who succeed will often be quite individualistic. The first three role models interviewed are three strikingly individualistic characters who have nevertheless sought a strong community role, aiming in two of the cases to convert the community to their cause. They are: Baba Kanako, who started a school-uniform recycling business on Shikoku Island and now advises other mothers all over Japan; Ishizaka Noriko who took over her family waste-processing business in order to turn it environmentalist; and Oikawa Hideko, who took her family denim business upmarket after her husband died and then found herself running an evacuation centre during the devastating 2011 tsunami.