Tokyo, July 27 (BNA) Japan’s Minister of Gender Equality and Children’s Issues described the record low birthrates and population decline as a national crisis and blamed “apathy and ignorance” in the Japanese parliament.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press, Seiko Noda said the steadily dwindling number of children born in Japan is an existential threat, saying the nation will not have enough troops, police or firefighters in the coming decades if it continues. She said the number of newborns last year hit a record low of 810,000, down from 2.7 million just after the end of World War II.
People say that children are a national treasure. …they say that women are important to gender equality. But they only talk,” Noda, 61, told the Associated Press at the Cabinet Office in the government complex in central Tokyo. “Politics in Japan will only move if (the problems of children and women) arise.”
There are a variety of reasons for the low birth rate, persistent gender bias and declining population in Japan, she said, “but being in Parliament, I especially feel that there is apathy and ignorance.”
Japan is the world’s third largest economy, a strong democracy, and a major ally of the United States, but the government has struggled to make society more inclusive of children, women, and minorities. There are deep concerns, both inside and outside Japan, about how the country will reverse what critics call a deep history of male chauvinism that has contributed to the low birth rate.
The gap between men and women in Japan is one of the worst in the world. It was ranked 116th in a survey of 146 countries conducted by the 2022 World Economic Forum, which measures progress toward equality based on economic and political participation, as well as education, health and other opportunities for women.
“Japan has fallen behind because other countries have been changing faster,” said Chizuko Ueno, a professor of feminist studies at the University of Tokyo, referring to Japan’s gender gap. “Previous governments neglected the problem.”
Noda said that due to outdated social and legal systems surrounding family issues, young Japanese are increasingly reluctant to marry and have children, which contributes to a low birth rate and shrinking population. She has served in Parliament since 1993 and has expressed her ambition to be the first female Prime Minister of Japan.
Noda criticized a law requiring married couples to choose one last name – 90% of the time it’s women who change their surnames – saying it’s the only such legislation in the world.
“In Japan, women are underestimated in many ways,” said Noda, who is one of only two women in the 20-member cabinet. “I just want women to be on an equal footing with men. But we’re not there yet, and the advancement of women still has to wait.”
The most powerful lower house of Japan’s two-chamber parliament is more than 90% “people who do not menstruate, do not become pregnant and cannot breastfeed,” Noda was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
The lack of female representation is often referred to as “a democracy without women”.
Noda said the quota system could help increase the number of women candidates for political office. Male lawmakers criticized her proposal, saying that women should be judged by their abilities.
“It made me think there are men who lack the ability” to be candidates, she said. But during the candidate selection process, “Men can only be men, and I think, for them, just being male can be considered their ability.”
Noda graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo and worked at the prestigious Imperial Hotel in Tokyo before entering politics, succeeding her grandfather, who was a member of parliament in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan.
Noda gave birth to her first and only child at the age of 50 after fertility treatments.
She has many liberal supporters, calling herself an “endangered species” in her conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan with little interruption since the end of the war.
Noda said she was often “attacked” by party conservatives, but also by women’s rights activists, who did not see her as a genuine feminist.
Without the help of powerful male legislators in the party, Noda might not have made it this far, said Chiako Sato, an editorial writer for the Mainichi newspaper, in a recent article.
Comparing Noda and her hard-line conservative deputy, Sana Takeshi, Sato said that despite their different political views, the women have some similarities. “Perhaps they had no other way than to win the support of powerful male legislators to advance in the LDP at a time when women are not considered fully qualified human beings.”
One of the big problems, Noda said, is that the Japan Self-Defense Force has had difficulty getting enough troops because of the shrinking youth population. She added that there was not enough interest in what the dwindling numbers would mean for police and firefighters who rely on young recruits.
In an effort to tackle the problems, it has created a new government agency dedicated to children, due to be launched next year.
Noda said that young politicians in recent years have become more open to gender equality, which partly reflects the increasing number of children being raised by working couples.
But she said many male lawmakers believe that issues around family, gender and population do not concern them, and are reluctant to get involved.
“Policies were made as if there were no women or children,” she said.