Record number of working women in Japan in 2022

The number of women in employment has reached a record 30.4 million in 2022. However, gender equality still remains a distant goal in the Land of the Rising Sun. Overall last year there was an increase in the working population to 67.06 million. For the Kishida government, this is one of the first fruits of policies to support working mothers.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The number of working women in Japan reached a record 30.4 million in 2022: an increase over the past five years of 1.22 million.

The survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications-whose data was released on Friday-also showed another indicator that reveals how the country is making strides-although small for one of the world's economic powerhouses-to smooth out a gender gap that is still very much ingrained in Japanese culture.

Indeed, the employment rate among women has reached a record high of 53.2 percent, attributed in part to government efforts to help families and particularly mothers work while raising children.

In contrast, the number of working men decreased slightly from the previous survey in 2017 to 36.7 million. This figure is balanced by the increase in working women, which still increased the overall working population in Japan. Again, this is a record figure with 67.06 million working people.

The number of "non-regular" employees, with part-time contracts for example, stands at 21.11 million, or 36.9 percent of the total, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous survey.

So the labor market is more stable than in the past in Japan. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to promote women's economic independence as a key pillar of his policy called "new form of capitalism," intensifying efforts to promote equality and gender equality.

Last month, Tokyo's government council approved a new guideline for closing the gender gap even at the top of the country's major enterprises: the goal is to increase the percentage of quotas for women in management to more than 30 percent by 2030 in companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime market.

The survey, for the first time, also asked respondents about smart-working and telecommuting, reflecting on changing work styles in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: 19.1 percent of workers, or 12.65 million Japanese have worked remotely in the past year.

Parents of preschoolers and working children account for 85.2 percent of the beneficiaries of these solutions, an increase of 5.9 points from 2017.

In addition, parenting support measures, such as parental leave and reduced hours after the birth of children, have helped workers balance work and child-rearing.

The survey, conducted every five years, was conducted last October and surveyed about 1.08 million people aged 15 and older.