Abe’s womenomics goal fails to take hold in Japan

But many women still struggle to find adequate child care, even after Abe promised to eliminate waiting lists for public daycare centers by 2020.

As of earlier this year, there were still nearly 12,500 children on waiting lists, even as the number of babies born in Japan fell to the lowest level in close to 1 1⁄ centuries.

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Among single mothers, the poverty rate has worsened under Abe. More than half fell below the poverty line in 2019, up from nearly 45% when Abe became prime minister in 2012, according to the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training, a think tank.

To many women, Abe showed his true colors on two cultural issues: his repeated demurral on a growing push to change a 19thcentury law dictating that married couples use one surname, and his emphasis on the “importance of the male succession” as a majority of the Japanese public supports allowing a woman to become emperor.

Women’s halting progress in society is in part a product of their deeprooted underrepresentation in politics.

All three of the lawmakers vying to replace Abe as prime minister are men. Two women initially indicated they would be interested in running but quickly dropped out after failing to gain support.

Women represent less than 15% of lawmakers in Japan’s parliament.

“The main reason for Japan’s shockingly low numbers of women politicians is the LDP’s failure to recruit and nominate women,” said Gill Steel, a professor of political science at Doshisha University in Kyoto and the editor of “Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan.”

“Abe presided over this situation and did nothing to change it,” she said.