Paper short abstract:

In the fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality, a numeral target for women running for Nation-wide Local Election is first articulated in policies for promotion of women’s participation in politics. This paper discusses how the policy increases female candidates in Nation-wide Local Election in 2023.

Paper long abstract:

Women’s underrepresentation in local government is one of the global issues as well as that in parliaments as countries’ highest legislative bodies. In Japan a proportion of female legislators in local assemblies is 15.1 percent and that of female mayors and governors is 2.7 percent both as of December 2021. In 2018, the new law aiming for gender equality in politics, Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field, was enacted, which calls for political parties to try to achieve equality in the number of male and female candidates in both national and local elections. At Nation-wide Local Election in 2019, which is the first one held after the law, the percentages of female candidates and women elected increased slightly, by two percent, though the number of female candidates increases at all the level of local assembly membership elections.

Grounded on the current situation of gender inequality in Japanese local politics, the government announces in the fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality from 2021 to 2025 that a numeral target, 35 percent by 2025, for female candidates running for Nation-wide Local Election is set in policies for promotion of women’s participation in politics. After the act on gender equality in politics was put in force, there have been more news reporting that members of women’s groups empower women to run for local elections in their own cities and towns through seminars or training programs for 'women only', and that political parties struggle to look for new female candidates both of national and local elections. This paper discusses how the policies on promotion of women in politics activate women’s groups to empower women and political parties to recruit women, and how they increase female candidates in Nation-wide Local Election in 2023.