It’s still very difficult for women to reenter the country’s workforce following the birth of a child. If you are a married woman over 35 in Japan, it’s hard to find even a temporary job. Prime Minister Abe’s government is far from serious about creating work-life balance for working mothers.

Absolutely agree. What has Abe done (note, not said) at all for working women/mothers? What has the LDP itself done since Koizumi's speech on daycares 16 years ago? What makes you think that these affluent old men actually believe in or want gender equality? I simply don't see evidence of it.

To be fair, it's not all that easy for men over 35 to just walk into a new job either. I haven't looked at any job postings recently, but years ago I remember being astonished at how many explicitly stated 35 as being the age limit. Making that kind of thing illegal would be a good start.

I can speak from experience before I retired from a Japanese electronics firm that all the women in my department used up all their annual leave (20 days) due to issues with their kids. The moment thekid would get a sniffle, the nursery school or kindergarden would call up the mother to come pickup their kid. Employers won't put with these situations and you cannot blame them.

Japanese deserve the politicians they vote for. No politics empowerement, no law improvement for their rights.

Since women in partucular don't want to criticize openly and shame the Abe's ruling party by calling him a liar, not an inch if change to expect.

"Far from serious" = she meant hopeless and untrustworthy.

Why do people look to politicians to change the culture & dogma of the society ? It's more productive watching paint dry, they dry eventually.

There are huge society-wide problems preventing working mothers from getting on. They include long working hours and few actual holidays for full-timers, lack of childcare, caregiving responsibilities for the elderly, overbearing and unavoidable school/PTA commitments, other unavoidable commitments from neighbourhood associations and club activities, and, of course, traditional men not doing housework. Changing one factor, like employers' attitudes, will not change very much with the other problems still in place.

I also think there is a lack of solidarity from women who do not work. Schools and neighbourhoods could operate with fewer demands on parents (mothers), but there is insufficient pressure for them to change.

all the women in my department used up all their annual leave (20 days) due to issues with their kids. The moment thekid would get a sniffle, the nursery school or kindergarden would call up the mother to come pickup their kid. Employers won't put with these situations and you cannot blame them.

So they used their state guaranteed and bloody-well earned annual leave (note" "vacation time" for everyone else) to take care of their kids and employers won't "put up with these situations"? And we shouldn't blame these poor corporations for discrimination? Maybe this is obvious but seems like it may not be for you Mr. Watts; without parents taking care of kids when they are sick there are no people to buy products and no bodies to fill positions. Can I blame companies for taking and not giving back? You bet I can and do.

I am a man and I used up most of my annual leave on child care sick leave but no one ever asked me about my plans to have a baby in the future. What do we call that I wonder?

It's not Abe's doing. It's the employers. How obvious is that? Hello, the latter are the ones throwing up the barriers; the former urging them to bring them down.

It is not just women who meet the age bar. I have seen adverts stating the cut off age as 28. Unless Abe has the guts to revise employment law and enforce it with jail time for company execs who flaunt the law then nothing will change. Japan is just a society with so many prejudices. Age, sex, race, social status, family name to name but a few.

This is all a bunch of gobbledy-gook. The issue isn't the politicians themselves or the lack of people standing up to the issue - the society itself is broken. The young can't criticize the old, the old cling to traditions worthless in today's economy, and the apathetic feel they can't do anything, so they don't. BROKEN.