July 14, 2022

Japan ranked 116th, the last place among the Group of Seven major economies, in the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 which the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF) released on July 13.

In the report, the WEF ranked 146 countries according to their gender equality achievement rate in the fields of education, health, economic participation, and political participation. Japan’s overall achievement rate fell to 65% from 65.6% in the previous year. Regarding women’s political participation, such as the female-male ratio of parliamentarians and ministers, Japan’s gender parity stood at 6.1%, far below the world average of 22%. Accordingly, Japan was ranked in 116th position among 146 countries.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kurabayashi Akiko, who is in charge of the JCP commission on gender equality, commented on the WEF report. Kurabayashi pointed out that Japan was unable to raise its position mainly because the government ignored UN recommendations calling for the government to eliminate gender inequality by such means as reducing the gap in wages between men and women and revising the law which requires married couples to use the same surname.

Kurabayashi stressed, “The JCP in the Diet has repeatedly urged the government to make efforts to narrow the gender gap in wages, which led to the government decision to oblige companies to make public their wage differences between male and female employees.” She pointed out that in order to eliminate the gender pay gap, the need is to implement concrete measures which include the prohibition of indirect discrimination, the offering of full-time positions to non-regular workers, and the improvement of the wage level of care workers - most of whom are women.

Kurabayashi said that in collaboration with a growing movement calling for gender equality, the JCP will work hard to achieve significant gains.