Lower House member Seiko Noda was not surprised that the lack of female representation in politics dragged Japan’s ranking to its lowest level ever in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2023.

“While Japan is dilly-dallying, other countries are successfully building diverse nations, including women,” she said on June 21. “The biggest problem is that many people in the Diet do not care about these issues.”

The WEF’s report, released earlier that day, ranked Japan 125th among 146 countries in terms of closing the gender gap. For the political sector alone, Japan placed 138th, nearly unchanged from 139th last year.

“We need to humbly accept the current state of our country,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a news conference on June 21.

Based on the government’s basic plan for women’s empowerment and gender equality, Matsuno said, “We will request each political party to make voluntary efforts to set numerical targets for the number of female candidates.”

Japan’s ranking for politics was based on the percentage of female Lower House members and Cabinet ministers, as well as the tenure of female leaders, over the past five decades.

Currently, the Lower House has 48 female lawmakers, or 10 percent of all members.

Since no Lower House election has been held since last year to this year, the proportion of female members in the Diet chamber barely changed.

The WEF’s 2022 report noted that as of January 2021 then Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had only two women in his Cabinet.

The 2023 report showed the current administration of Fumio Kishida also had two female Cabinet members as of January this year.

Political parties say they are working to encourage more women to participate in politics.

Among lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, only 45, or 12 percent, are female: 21 in the Lower House and 24 in the Upper House.

The LDP’s Headquarters for Implementing the Reform of Party announced a basic plan on June 19 to nurture and appoint female lawmakers.

The plan says the LDP will “strengthen its efforts with the goal of raising the proportion of female lawmakers to 30 percent” over the next 10 years.

In the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, 22 percent of Diet members are women: 13 in the Lower House and 17 in the Upper House.

“The world of politics has been male-dominated, making it difficult for women to participate in,” Kenta Izumi, head of the CDP, said on June 21. “We need to change the situation within the party, within the Diet and in local assemblies nationwide.”

The CDP said it will lend 1 million yen ($7,050) to any woman who officially runs on the CDP ticket for the first time in the next Lower House election.

Internal party maneuvers, particularly among factions, have often prevented women from becoming Cabinet ministers and Lower House members.

The prime minister has the power to increase the number of women in Cabinet positions.

In practice, however, prime ministers in the LDP usually first consider the demands of each party faction to maintain stability.

LDP executives have the power to approve the party’s Lower House candidates in the single-seat constituency election system, unlike under the multiple-seat constituency system, in which party factions compete against each other.

The LDP president can approve women and rookies as candidates in single-seat constituencies. But in reality, the majority of candidates are “male incumbents,” and they often receive priority out of consideration for the party’s factions.

Mari Miura, a professor of politics at Sophia University, said many women do well in local elections, indicating that voters have high expectations of them.

However, in Lower House elections, which use the single-seat constituency system, it is difficult for women to run in these districts because 90 percent of the incumbents are men.

In the current election system, candidates who lose in a single-seat constituency can win in the proportional representation system. This gives men in the male-dominated single-seat system a greater chance to win a Diet seat.

Miura said that if this system is abolished and each political party fields an equal number of female and male candidates in proportional representation, the number of female lawmakers could increase.

She said that changing the political party subsidy system is also an option.

Parties would be more eager to have an equal number of female and male candidates if they receive less funding when the gender gap is wide.