Women in General

1.1  Overall

Before World War II, the status of women in Japanese society was very low. The Constitution at that time did not guarantee the equality of the sexes, and women had neither the right to vote nor the right to be elected. Under the Civil Code, wives were regarded as incompetent, and their property and inheritance rights, and their right to exercise parental authority were restricted

After the War, the new Constitution that was promulgated in 1946 guaranteed for the first time the equality of men and women under the law. Subsequently, the Civil Code was revised, and a range of domestic laws were enacted, including the Fundamental Law of Education and the Labour Standards Law, which resulted in sweeping improvements in the legal status of women in the family, the workplace and in society generally.

Since 1960, the high growth of the Japanese economy brought rapid socio-economic changes such as rise of living standards and scientific and technological progress. These changes, together with longer life expectancy, lower birth rate, and higher educational standards, affected family life, and particularly the lives of women.

Women began to participate in ever greater numbers in a range of economic and social activities. However, the equality of men and women has not been fully achieved in practice, for the traditional concept that women are to stay at home is still deeply rooted.

1.2  Women's life cycle

Of the total population of 125,570,246 in Japan, women account for 51.0%. The average life span of women, which stood at 46.54 years in 1930, rose to 82.84 years in 1995. On the other hand, the number of children a woman bears in her lifetime (fertility rate per woman) decreased from 4.11 in 1940 to 1.39 in 1997. The decrease in the number of children and the longer life expectancy have brought down the age of women arriving at the stage where they are more or less free from the care of their children, consequently extending enormously the span of their life after child-rearing. Thus today a woman becomes free from child care at the age of 35.6 when her youngest child enters school, and from that time she has still 48 years to live. Furthermore, the age of a woman at the stage where her youngest child gets married is 56.5 after which she has 19 years to live only with her husband until his death (at the wife's age of 75.9).

This means that women today lead nearly 20 years' life of middle age from the latter half of their 30s, with more or less plentiful free time, and then they have nearly 19 years of old age ahead to live only with their husbands. How to spend these years poses to women an important question upon which women's happiness depends

Sources:		Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vital Statistics, Abridged Life Tables, Fertility Survey Ministry of Education, Basic Schools Survey.
Note:		The years of birth for this model were set by counting back from the average first marriage age in 1928, 1950 and 1994. The age of school graduation was set using the ratio of students who advanced to schools of higher grade in the year that the people of the set first-marriage age actually advanced to the higher schools; for the other life stages, ages were set based on average values in the year of marriage.
Fig. 1 Models of life cycle of Japanese women

Table 1 Population of Japan

Source:  Management and Coordination Agency, Population Census.

Source:  Ministry of Health and Welfare, Life Tables.

Fig. 2 Average life expectancy

Fig. 3 Total fertility rate

Source: Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vital Statistics.

Source: Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vital Statistics.

Fig. 4 Average age of first marriage

Source: Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vital Statistics.

Fig. 5 Changes in the marriage and divorce rates

(Rate: based on the number of cases per 1,000 persons)

1.3 Participation of women in politics

The number of eligible women voters accounts for more than half of the total number of eligible voters, and the voting rate of women has been higher than that of men in recent years. Close attention is now paid to the movement of women voters, since it may have a major effect on the future political situation. However, at present, the number of women participating in such decision-making organs as the National Diet and local assemblies is still very small.

Table 3 Number of female members of assemblies

Sources: Secretariats of the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors; Election Department, Ministry of Home Affairs.

1.4 Women in managerial and professional posts

The number of women in managerial posts in various fields is still small, although it is increasing annually.

Table 4  Number of women in managerial posts in enterprises and in professional and technical occupations

Source: Management and Coordination Agency, Population Census, 1995.

Table 5  Number and ratio of female technical and managerial workers

Source: Management and Coordination Agency, Population Census, 1995.

Note: The figures in respect of primary school principals and junior high school principals are based on the 1997 survey by the Ministry of Education.

1.5 Women's awareness

According to a survey on perceptions of equality between men and women in various fields, 77.1% of people surveyed felt that men received better treatment than women in society's views and customs, 67.1% felt the same way regarding politics, 59.3% regarding the workplace, 53.6% regarding family life, and 44.4% regarding the law or other institutional structures; whereas 65.2% felt that there was equality in school education.

The survey also revealed that inequality is felt more strongly by women than by men.

Sourse : Prime Minister's Office,Public Opinion Survey on Gender Equality, 1995.

Fig. 6 Do women and men have equal status?

Although the traditional concept of roles of men and women is still persisting in the minds of Japanese people, the ratio of those who agree with the traditional idea has been decreasing. In 1995, 22.3% of women agreed with the idea that "man is to work and woman is to stay at home," while 53.9% did not agree.

Source: Prime Minister's Office, Public Opinion Survey on Gender Equality, 1995, in which 5,000 men and women aged 20 years and over were surveyed.

Fig. 7 Man is to work and woman is to stay at home

 

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