Japan has one of the largest gender gaps in the world. Even though Japanese women are highly educated — indeed, the university enrollment rate for 18-year-old females now exceeds that for 18-year-old males — the female employment rate is about 25 percentage points lower than the rate for men, and ranks among the lowest in the developed countries.The I.M.F. estimates that if Japan’s female labor participation rate climbed to the average of the Group of 7 industrial economies, Japan’s per-capita economic output would be 4 percentage points higher. If employment rates for Japanese women were to reach parity with those for Japanese men, Goldman Sachs estimates Japan’s work force would gain eight million people and its gross domestic product would be 14 percent larger.
