Why do Japanese women suffer from the low status?: The impact of neo-liberalist reform on gender

The global ranking of Japan’s Gender Gap Index is 121st among 153 countries in 2020, disproportionally low compared with Japan’s GDP ranked at the third. This paper explores the structural background and the historical path-dependency why Japanese women are confined at the low status. The so-called Japanese style management, once considered as a success model, is responsible for this gender inequality, which strongly sticks to the male breadwinner model. The paper also explains who pays the cost of gender discrimination, and its historical outcome in the international community in the comparative context. With the lack of outsourcing alternatives of women’s care burden, namely, neither socialization of care service in the public sector at the cost of high tax burden, nor commodification of care service in the market at the cost of cheap migrant labor, gender serves as a functional equivalent with class and race in other societies, which accordingly keep Japanese women at the bottom of labor market. In addition, the paper proves the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, particularly on single mothers, where the existing gap is widened and accelerated at the time of crisis.