Tokyo - Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is a man on a mission: to get women into the workforce in their numbers, and to keep them there.
As part of his plan Japan this week hosts the first World Assembly for Women (WAW); a gathering which has been likened by its organisers to a future “Davos for women” (a reference to the World Economic Forum held annually in Switzerland).
WAW will be addressed by a number of global women leaders with panel discussions to be led by, among others, South Africa's former deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is the executive director of UN Women.
Mlambo-Ngcuka spoke in Australia last month (August 27) of the need, 20 years after the Beijing Women's Conference, for a global campaign to accelerate action on gender equality and women's empowerment, a call she is likely to repeat in Tokyo.
In a briefing of international journalists invited to attend the landmark gathering, Keiko Takegawa, the director general in the Gender Equality Bureau - a division of Japan's Cabinet Office - said Shine Week which preceded WAW, offered an opportunity to consider women's advancement in Japan and globally.
It was a period to illuminate issues and set goals, she said. In the case of Japan, the minimum goal was to increase women's participation in the economy and the number of women in leadership in various fields, including in business and politics.
“The duration of time women stay in the labour market is limited in this country,” she said, with 60% of mothers who give birth to their first child destined to leave the workplace and not return. “And, among those who do go back, it is difficult to advance to a managerial position after an extended absence from work,” she said.
“We want to mobilise women,” she said of the Prime Minister's “womanomics” policy, “by tackling underlying gender issues which inhibit them”.
Among these are:
* Japanese workers tend to work very long hours, with close to 20 percent of men in their 30s and 40s (an important child-rearing period) working more than 60 hours a week.
* In Japan, husbands spend an average of 1:07 hours a day on housework and childcare. This compares to 2:46 hours in the UK and 3:21 hours in Sweden.
* Women not only do most of the child care in Japan but a disproportionate amount of elder nursing care too.
* Relatively few women study engineering and other science related fields, with most choosing education or social science fields of study.
* Studies of the status of men and women show 69 percent of people in Japan believe men get preferential treatment.
The assistant press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan, Takako Ito, said in another briefing that despite being high achievers at school and beyond, many Japanese women stopped working once they had children or ageing parents to care for, and circumstances meant they seldom went back.
While it was difficult to change stereotypes such as that a woman's primary role was as a caregiver in the home, women as individuals and the economy as a whole lost when women were excluded from the workplace, said Ito.
As part of “womanonmics”, Japan had introduced a raft of policy measures to promote and protect women and encourage them back to work, including:
* Excellent maternal and child health care
* Better maternity and paternity benefits
* Child support including increased child care facilities
* Educating boys and men to share responsibilities and be supportive of women
* Encouraging a healthier work-life balance for men and women
* Social support for women, including providing role models
* Policies which encourage entrepreneurship and participation in the economy
* Dealing with issues which may have been hidden, such as violence against women
* Tax benefits
In the past year 500 000 women had rejoined the workforce, and this number is set to increase thanks to the policies in place, she said.
In his recent cabinet reshuffle, Abe set an example by increasing the number of women ministers to five. He has also encouraged all ministries to focus on policies which promote women, said both Ito and Takegawa. And, on the domestic front, the first lady had indicated that he is willing to help her at home.
The WAW assembly opens on Friday. Asked what she hopes it will achieve, Takegawa said Japan wanted to share its mission and initiatives with others, and offer its support to women in developing countries on ways they too could become economically active and empowered.
“We want to encourage woman, especially in Japan, to see what is possible. We are not saying all women must work, but that they should have a choice, and that choice should be supported by their families and society,” Ito said.
Ideas generated from WAW will later be presented to the UN.
Pretoria News editor Valerie Boje is attending the conference.