THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 18, 2023 at 15:39 JST
The Mie prefectural assembly in session (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Ahead of unified local elections, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed that women and young people continue to be vastly underrepresented--if at all--on Japan’s prefectural and municipal assemblies.
In about 40 percent of the local assemblies, there were only one or no female members.
Female assembly members under age 50 made up only 2.9 percent of the total of 31,722.
But young men were also hugely underrepresented as those under 40 made up only 3.1 percent of the total.
Kazunori Kawamura, an associate professor of political science at Tohoku University, said it was difficult for women to run for local office because there still existed in some communities the strong sentiment that they were incapable of holding public office.
“The structure continues to make it difficult for women because many local assemblies have not moved away from a tendency to have older male members who are elected for many terms,” Kawamura said. “There is the fear that discussions will not be conducted on policies for women and young people that the local communities need.”
The Asahi Shimbun has conducted surveys of local assembly makeup in conjunction with unified local elections held every four years. Elections will be held this spring in 40 percent of the local assemblies with one or no female members.
Women made up 15.6 percent of all local assembly members. While the figure has been slowly increasing from the 11.7 percent in 2015 and 13.2 percent in 2019, the number is similar to the low figures for female Diet members. Only 10 percent of Lower House members are women, while the ratio in the Upper House is 25.8 percent.
There has also been a gradual decline in the percentage of local assemblies with one or no female members, with the figures falling from 49.3 percent in 2015 to 44.7 percent in 2019 and 38.7 percent this year.
At the same time, there were four municipal assemblies where women made up half of the members--Kiyose in western Tokyo, Shimamoto and Toyono towns in Osaka Prefecture and Ono city in Hyogo Prefecture.
(This article was written by Masao Hayashi and Roppei Tsuda.)
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