Female Empowerment in Japan

By: V-Dem Staff
Jun 23, 2015


Freedom of domestic movement for women has been consistently protected since the beginning of the century. After a slight advancement in terms of freedom from forced labor and access to justice during 1940-50s, Japan reaches maximum scores on these two measures. This suggests that secure and effective access to justice for women is almost always observed, and servitude and slavery is virtually non-existent. With regard to other aspects of female empowerment, large deficits existed in Japan during the first half of the century. The country does not reach maximum scores on the indicators for freedom of discussion for women, property rights for women and CSO women’s participation until around 1945. In terms of power distributed by gender, the country develops somewhat slower in comparison to the other indicators. Japan does not reach the maximum score on this indicator even in most recent years, although a gradual improvement starting from the 1945 has led to women gaining more power. Yet, parity has not been achieved yet, and Japanese men still have significantly more political power than the women of the country.