Diversity & Empowerment of People

Our goal is a society that welcomes diverse ways of working and empowers all equally, including seniors, women, and international professionals.

Realizing “equal pay for equal work”: Eliminate the irrational gaps in the treatment of regular and non-regular workers in order to enable non-regular workers to be fairly evaluated and to work with higher motivation
Promote a flexible work style: Promote telework, side jobs and those who wish to take on multiple jobs with a variety of policy measures, including the renewal of guidelines

Move toward free education for infants (from low income households), all pre-school children, and higher-education (university) students (from low income households). Furthermore, greatly increase the volume of grant-type scholarships that do not require repayment.
Support further education and mid-life career change for
- Individuals who seek to advance their skills
- Those wishing to switch jobs
- Mothers returning to work after child-care leave, who wish to boost skills or change employment
Make education more practical
- Reform higher education curriculum and facilities to better meet the needs of today’s professions, such as those in the areas of IT and AI (e.g., creating a model curriculum and teaching materials for mathematics, data science, and AI education, and deploying them nationally)
- Introduce programming as a mandatory study from elementary school to boost the information literacy of society in the future

Bolster health support for women at various life stages
Offer greater assistance to single parents, irrespective of gender
Make available further and recurrent education for women returning to work after child-care leave
Provide female candidates with executive leadership training programs from the world’s leading business scholars
Eliminate all forms of violence against women including spousal violence, sex crimes, prostitution, human trafficking, sexual harassment, and stalking
Promote men taking child-care leave and being more active with domestic tasks

Achievements

From 2012 to 2019, the number of women joining the workforce increased by about

3.3million

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “Labour Force Survey”
Women in management positions in the private sector approaches

10%

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare “Basic Survey on Wage Structure”

Provide a choice to work beyond the official retirement age for those who want to do so, as well as support companies that retain retiree-age staff (Consider obliging companies to make efforts to secure employment opportunities for people up to the age of 70)
Provide support in matching job openings and applications
Consider raising the retirement age of civil servants gradually from 60 to 65 years old

Achievements

From 2012 to 2019, employment rate of people over the age of 65 increased by 5.4%

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “Labour Force Survey”
71%

of seniors report that they would like to continue to work past retirement age

Source: Cabinet Office “Research on daily life of seniors”2014

Actively attract overseas professionals who have expertise or experience in certain areas through easier visa procedures
- Fast-track visa screenings to 10 days
- Set up the world’s fastest Japanese Green Card program for Highly-Skilled Foreign Professionals in select fields
Established a new status of residence for foreign human resources who have a certain level of professional and technical skill, and Japanese language proficiency
Online applications accepted from 2019
Ease quality-of-life with more non-Japanese signage, international schools, English-speaking hospitals
Support more international students and entrepreneurs

Achievements