Japan - Seeing Women as Key to Economy - Japan's Prime Minister Names 5 Women to Cabinet

Since taking office in December 2012, Mr. Abe has spoken of the need to revive Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, by more fully unleashing the potential of its huge pool of highly educated women, who have long been relegated to relatively low-ranking positions in the work force.

He has even adopted the name “womenomics” to describe his goal, a play on the term Abenomics, which is used for his plans to bring Japan back from years of economic malaise. But the prime minister has been criticized for having accomplished little of substance so far to help women beyond raising the issue of equal opportunity in a country where traditional gender roles remain deeply entrenched.

According to GovernanceMetrics International, a research company based in New York that monitors corporate behavior, women make up less than 1 percent of the board members in Japanese corporations, ranking the country at the bottom of advanced economies. By comparison, women make up 11.4 percent of corporate boards in the United States and 9 percent in Germany.

It is a similar story in politics. The United Nations says 8.1 percent of Japan’s national lawmakers are women, less than half of the 18.3 percent in the United States.

Women have made slow progress in Japan’s work force since the country passed its first gender equal-opportunity law in 1986, when many women were stuck in clerical jobs as so-called blossoms of the workplace, serving tea and greeting visitors.

While more women are now given bigger chances early in their careers, they still report facing a host of barriers to advancement, including the expectation by companies that career-minded employees demonstrate loyalty by spending most of their waking hours at the office. That often forces women to face stark choices between pursuing careers and having children. As part of his vows to empower women, Mr. Abe has promised to create more day care centers.

In making the new cabinet appointments, the prime minister may have seen a political need to make a new gesture to female voters at a time when his popularity has been sliding. Polls show that public approval of his performance has fallen after a contentious decision to ease constitutional restrictions on the Japanese military, though his ratings still hover near a respectable 50 percent largely because of support for his economic policies.

Cabinet reshuffles are common in Japan, with prime ministers using them to hand out posts to backers as a way of maintaining support. The new cabinet retained a conservative cast, and it includes people loyal to his assertive agenda of making Japan a more prominent player in regional security.

The new cabinet is the first since 2001, when Junichiro Koizumi, Mr. Abe’s political mentor, was prime minister, to have five of its 18 minister-level posts filled by women. Mr. Abe’s previous cabinet, which was dissolved earlier on Wednesday, had two women.

Mr. Abe on Wednesday repeated his pledges to increase the number of women in leadership positions, saying he wanted the women in his new cabinet to “conjure a fresh wind of change by bringing women’s perspectives.” The official group photograph of the new cabinet, taken at the prime minister’s residence, showed Mr. Abe standing in the center in a black tailcoat, surrounded by the five women in colorful dresses and kimonos.

Of the five female members, the most prominent is Yuko Obuchi, the 40-year-old daughter of a former prime minister who has been seen as a rising star in Japanese politics. She will become trade minister, a powerful post. The four other women are lesser known political figures, though one, a former journalist, Midori Matsushima, 58, was named as justice minister, another important post.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, 57, and Finance Minister Taro Aso, 73, held on to their spots. Shigeru Ishiba, 57, a popular rival of Mr. Abe’s who had talked about distancing himself from the prime minister, was instead enticed into joining the cabinet as the minister in charge of reviving regional economies. He is seen by many as a possible next prime minister.

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