Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the gender bias embedded in the electoral system and recruitment process of political parties. I argue that Japan's mixed electoral system requires high political capital to be elected, which makes it difficult for women to enter politics.

Paper long abstract:

Japan still lags far behind with regards to gender equality. According to the Gender Gap Index offered by the World Economic Forum, Japan ranks at the 111th out of 144 countries as of 2016. The low scores in economic opportunity and political empowerment drag down Japan's overall ranking. Although the relationship between women's empowerment in the economy and politics is actually complex, we can reasonably expect that women members of parliament are more likely to enact effective laws to improve the status of women in the economy. Thus, we need to ask why there are so few women in politics in Japan. Indeed, the percentage of women in the Lower House is only 9.5%, which ranks Japan at the 157th out of 191 countries.

This paper investigates the gender bias embedded in the electoral system and recruitment process of political parties. I argue that Japan's mixed electoral system requires high political capital to be elected, which makes it difficult for women who have tighter time constrain than men to enter politics. Moreover, gendered power relations within political parties also hinder women from entering politics.

Although Japanese electoral system is not favorable to women, women representatives have steadily increased in the last two decades. This phenomenon may be explained by strategic decisions of political parties. As the relationship between parties and their traditional support base became fluid, they turned to women voters to compensate for their lost votes. The LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), which is increasingly becoming hawkish, lose peace-oriented women voters, and instead try to appeal to high-skilled professional women. In contrast, the DP (Democratic Party) has not advocated gender equality policies to sufficiently attract women's votes.

Stagnation of gender equality policy in Japan, therefore, results not only from the few number of women representatives, but also from the dynamism of partisan competition in which gender equality has drawn scant political attention.