Japan: Economic Development Doesn't Ensure
Gender Equality
By Dr Yoriko
Meguro
[Excerpted from 'Toward Better Outcomes: Japan's
Gender Policies' in 'Power, Voice and
Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and
the Pacific, 2010 (UNDP/Macmillan).]
Tokyo (Women's
Feature Service) – Whatever the form and wherever it may take place, gender
inequality cuts across all countries, regardless of the level of economic
development. It is a critical concern for all from the standpoints of human
rights and human security, and Japan
is no exception.
Legal and institutional framework. The present
Constitution, enacted in 1946, liberated Japanese women from the pre-World War
II patriarchal institution. Two major institutional landmarks in Japan's
quest for gender equality are ratification of the CEDAW in 1985 and the
enactment of the Basic Law for Gender Equal Society in 1999. In addition to
these, the country has also taken legal measures to mitigate domestic violence
and facilitate parental leave, for example. Revisions have been made in
existing laws, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law and the Act on
Improvement of Employment Management for Part-Time Workers, with a stronger
encouragement for the private sector to eliminate gender discrimination. As one
of the so-called top recipients of trafficked women, the Japanese Government
has taken steps to cope with this trans-border gender issue in 2004. In the
following year, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, a protocol to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,
was ratified.
The Gender Equality
Office was upgraded to the Gender Equality Bureau in the Cabinet Office in
2000, serving as Japan's
national machinery and institutional mechanism for the promotion of gender
equality. To implement the Basic Law for Gender Equal Society, the Bureau
formulates a Plan of Action every five years to be approved by the Cabinet. In
accordance with the Basic Law, 22 per cent of Prefectures (provinces) adopted their
own ordinance and 57 per cent of the local government authorities have adopted
action plans to promote gender equality. 95 per cent of all Prefectures have
public centres for women or for gender equality. Furthermore, the government
has established a system that provides services to victims of domestic violence
and gender discrimination at the workplace.
Achievements and challenges. Japan
has been an active member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and an
eager participant in the past four World Women's Conferences and the Special
Session of the General Assembly: Women 2000. The documents from these meetings
have been instrumental in shaping Japan's
policies for promoting gender equality. The mandatory nature of national
reporting to the CEDAW Committee has kept the government and NGOs sensitized to
the progress made and the challenges that remain.
It is fair to say
that Japan has
made a considerable advancement in building the legal and institutional
frameworks for promoting gender equality prior to the turn of the century. The
Gender Equality Bureau, however, has expressed its concerns over Japan's Gender
Empowerment Measure ranking by UNDP, Japan being 58th among 108 countries in
2008, while it was the 8th on HDI (out of 179) and the 12th (out of 157) on GDI
scales. What is there to bring such a large gap between HDI and GEM? It is now
clear that economic development is not necessarily a precondition for gender
equality. Interestingly Japan's
ranking on GEM shows a downward trend since 2001, but its values have slightly
increased. This means that those countries which made statistical data
available for GEM calculation in the past decade had higher values than Japan.
Although women's full access to education has long been achieved, particularly
on the primary and the secondary levels, higher education has not generally
prepared women to enter career tracks and professional paths. The Japanese
Government admits that the pace of advancement towards gender equality by the
international standard has been slow and that latecomers advanced faster in a
short period of time.
Japan's
ranking on the Gender Gap Index (developed by the World Economic Forum) is 98th
among 130 countries in 2008. Critical variables used in both GEM and GGI are
extremely low for Japan
in comparison with many other countries. These are as follows: 1) the estimated
earned income; 2) the ratio of female professional and technical workers,
legislators, senior officials and managers; and 3) women in parliament and in
ministerial positions. Japan
obviously lags greatly behind other countries despite the impression that
women's visibility in society has increased over the years.
What are the reasons for continued gender gaps in
economics and politics? The main reason for gender gap in the labour force
participation is the disrupted work career of women owing to childcare. Surveys
on the pattern of women's labour force participation have shown a continued
trend of the so-called M-shaped curve, indicating a distinct drop in women's
labour force participation among those in the child-rearing age brackets. The
number one reason for women disrupting their careers and leaving the work is
'childcare'. Despite the high rate of women workers using their legal rights to
take the parental leave, particularly in the private sector, many of them do
not or cannot return to the same job they left behind because of the work
conditions and the corporate culture, but also the shortage of support for
childcare. It is hard for women with small children to get husband's support
partly because some men and their parents still believe that mothers are
responsible for childcare, and partly because of long work hours particularly
of men who are in the life stage of parenting small children. Even if the young
fathers are willing to share the childcare responsibility, they have little
time to spend at home. Therefore, women who wish to continue the work career
may reluctantly avoid the risk of having more than one child, if any. Those who
have a choice of continuing their work and going up the ladder for higher
positions are single or childless or are regular employees who are able to find
resources for childcare. This is possibly one reason why women make up only 10
per cent of those in managerial positions today. Income is related to the
duration of work career and the position at work. Underlining these facts is
the strong gender norm defining men as breadwinner/producer and women as
housewife/caregiver.
Only 11 per cent of
seats in Parliament (the Lower House of the Diet) are held by women in 2008.
The culture of political parties, the electoral system, the perception of the
voters, and limited resources - including a lack of training accessible by
women to run for public offices - all contribute to the low participation of
women in public decision-making.
Dr. Yoriko Meguro specialises in gender studies and
sociology, and is Professor Emeritus of Sophia University, Tokyo.
She serves as the Japanese Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of
Women.
Excerpted from 'Toward Better Outcomes: Japan's
Gender Policies', in 'Power, Voice
and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia
and the Pacific, 2010 (UNDP/Macmillan).