https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/business/economy/japan-labor-market-women-participation.html

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Japan's Labor Market Has a Lesson for the Fed: Women Can Surprise You

Japan's improved labor force participation for women is a reminder
not to assume that job market limits are clear and finite.

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[19dc-japan-us-ckgp-articleLarge]
Working-age Japanese women have been joining the labor market
steadily over the past decade.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New
York Times
Jeanna Smialek

By Jeanna Smialek

March 19, 2024Updated 12:10 p.m. ET

Japan's economy has rocketed into the headlines this year as
inflation returns for the first time in decades, workers win wage
gains and the Bank of Japan raises interest rates for the first time
in 17 years.

But there's another, longer-running trend happening in the Japanese
economy that could prove interesting for American policymakers:
Female employment has been steadily rising.

Working-age Japanese women have been joining the labor market for
years, a trend that has continued strongly in recent months as a
tight labor market prods companies to work to attract new employees.

The jump in female participation has happened partly by design. Since
about 2013, the Japanese government has tried to make both public
policies and corporate culture more friendly to women in the work
force. The goal was to attract a new source of talent at a time when
the world's fourth-largest economy faces an aging and shrinking labor
market.

"Where Japan did well over the recent decade is putting the care
infrastructure in place for working parents," Nobuko Kobayashi, a
partner at EY-Parthenon in Japan, wrote in an email.

Still, even some who were around when the "womenomics" policies were
designed have been caught off guard by just how many Japanese women
are now choosing to work thanks to the policy changes and to shifting
social norms.

Japanese Women Are Working in Greater Numbers

The share of women who are active in the job market has picked up
sharply in Japan.

Female labor force participation rate, ages 25-54

Source: O.E.C.D.

By The New York Times

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